The book entirety deals with what took place in my life. I would like people who is going through hard times not to give up but to stay focus and fight in a physical and spiritual sense.
The Spell That Shattered My Life
By KamiAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Kami
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4567-2855-7Chapter One
Born and raised on a small island in South America, I, Kami Deon, was a normal child with good manners. I had a genuine love for my parents and siblings. As the eldest child of six, I was spoiled but in a good way. We were a close-knit family and still are. I had the two most beautiful parents who always looked out for their children. They made all efforts to do their utmost for us. The only grandparents I saw and knew were my two grandmothers; they were also the two most beautiful grandmothers anyone could have. My mother, the most wonderful mother of all mothers, never showed her true feelings. Most of the time, she could let you think that she did not care, but really, her heart would break when her children, or any loved ones for that matter, were going through some sort of problem. She would give her last penny to help someone. Since I was the eldest, my mother always looked to see what I needed; she would buy me everything a young teenager needed even though we had very little money. Yes, we were very poor but decent and simple people. When my father harvested the rice from the field or when my aunt or uncles would send money from America, Mother would buy me pretty dresses and everything else. I would look like a pretty rich girl, so others would not believe that we were poor, unless they took a look at our house, and then they would know who we were.
It was a very little house standing on six posts. You could sit under the house. It had a broken landing and steps, but the steps leading to the kitchen were okay. It had one bedroom and eight people living in it. The outside of the house was very old and was made from a type of inferior wood. Inside the house, the walls were painted with mud dug from a canal. Yes, we were poor, but my parents did their best to feed us and take care of us. My parents reared poultry, and whenever Mum cooked a fowl or duck, it would be a feast.
My father struggled to maintain his family. He was a farmer and also worked in a rice mill. There, he was the head engineer. Those who knew him have mentioned that he was the only one who could make their rice come out they way they wanted it, and they would commend him highly. And my mother, well, she was a stay-at-home mom, and she did take good care of us children. She made sure we had everything we wanted. This was especially true for me, the eldest. Growing up, I had a kind of sensitive skin; if something bit me, my skin would be all swollen with sores. It would leave marks, and my mother would buy all the body lotion she could, so I could rub it on my skin to help it look better, but it did not help much. Mum used to say, "When you are rusty, nothing can help."
One day, my dad came home with a little puppy. It was a German shepherd. I named him Rex. Rex was a beautiful dog. I loved that little dog. Whenever I would be eating, Rex would look at me and lick his lips. I would chew the bones and throw them at him, and he would catch them with his open mouth. When I got married, my father told my husband that I had to chew the bones for Rex and give them to him. My husband laughed and gave me the nickname Rex.
My dad was the most wonderful dad, but he had a problem. He made frequent visits to the neighborhood bar, where he would indulge in lots of booze. His friends were also a bad influence. Whenever he cultivated the rice and had it prepared to sell, my mother would always remind him that the children needed milk or tea or we needed food so he should come home before he spent the money, but Dad was always soft at heart. Just as soon as his friends saw him, they would call, "Gury, let's go and have a drink." If he said no, they would insist, and there went Dad and the money. Sometimes, he would get home around three o'clock the next morning after spending time at the nearby bar, and that would be it. Mother would be sitting and waiting. He would come home and call on my mother to open the door, and she would tell him to go to his friends. He would continue to knock at the door and wake all the children. Mother would tell me to go back to sleep and not to open the door. Now, this was my dad; in my eyes, he could do no wrong, so I would ignore Mother and open the door. Dad would laugh and talk to me while Mum would rant and rave. However, she was right, because we needed the money, but Dad would spend most of it. Well, as Mother would continue to quarrel with him, sometimes highly intoxicated, he would threaten that he would go and commit suicide. Now, that used to make me very worried. I would not go to sleep; I would stay up and make sure Dad went to sleep. I would beg Mother to stop quarrelling and wait until the next day to approach Dad. This went on most of my life until we moved abroad and Dad got a job for which he had to travel early in the morning and get home late. By the time he arrived home, he would be tired and would relax, so my parents lived better together and got along much better.
But while we were still home in our country, my parents made sure that all their children received a good education—especially me as the eldest. As a matter of fact, after I graduated junior high school and was about to go to high school, my mother took a trip to my grandmother's (her mother's) home, which was thirty miles away. Now, this was in 1970. She had heard that my uncle had come home for vacation. You see, my uncle used to teach at this big university in the capital city of our country. Before he got ready to go back to the university, Mother went to ask him if he could have me stay at Nana's and if he could support me to attend high school there, because that high school was known as one of the best. But I did not know that was what my mother was doing until she came back. And what I also did not know was that my uncle had refused to help me go to school there. He told my mother that he did not know if my nana would want me to stay at her place, but he had already agreed to let my cousin Momo stay at Nana's. At that time, education was not free. Tuition had to be paid every month, and Uncle was to pay for me, but Mother promised to help. My two aunts who were present when my mother was asking my uncle to help told him that I would not do well in school and that he was wasting time with me because I was a slow person. Now, these people did not know me, and I did not know them well. For them to make an assumption like that was not nice. They let me know about it later after I met them. But I guess it was just jealousy or something. My uncle had already agreed to take care of one of their children and pay her tuition. Two days after Mother came back, she said, "Get prepared. You will be taking a trip to your nana's home in Port Mourant. There, you will be going to school." Now, I was a very shy person, and when I did not know someone or had not seen someone for a long time, I did not know how to look at or talk to the person. I had not seen Nana or any of my mother's siblings for ages. I was not familiar to them, and vice versa. So imagine a young teenager, shy and all, traveling all by herself in a bus going to her nana's house and meeting a houseful of people to whom she was not accustomed. And just imagine a twelve-year-old girl who had never left home before and had always been with her family discovering that she would be leaving them and going far away to school and would rarely be able to see them. Imagine how horrified she would be. Well, I cried when Mother was not looking. I kept looking at my siblings. I said I would not be able to help take care of my baby brother, Tesh. He was only three months old at that time. He was a beautiful baby. I would also not be able to see my father to whom I was very close. Mum gave me directions on how to get there. She told me to tell the bus driver to stop at the market. From there, I would be able to see Nana's house. She lived in an attached cottage house, and I loved it.
However, when I got there, I saw my nana, my uncle, one of my mum's sisters, and her seven kids. This aunt was there because she had just separated from her husband. I did not know her too well. Another aunt and her little girl were also there, and she was mocking me and making all kinds of fun of me. She was saying to everyone present, "Kami is not smart. I do not know why her mother sent her here. She will fail." Maybe she thought I was too dumb to understand her.
Now, I had just arrived and did not know what to say except, "Good afternoon, everyone," so I just stood in a corner.
My uncle said, "Go put your bag of clothing in the bedroom." And all I could hear was my aunts and nana talking about my mum and me, saying that my mother had forced my uncle to support me in school.
Anyway, after a few days, I had gotten over my shyness and began to engage in conversations with my cousins and grandma. My uncle had no choice but to agree to send me to school, and so he made arrangements to send my cousin and me to a high school there. He bought the required books and paid tuition for us. Yes, my mum knew that she could not afford to pay for my education, but she made sure I got it anyway. She went to Nana's home to look into it because she wanted me to be someone special. And so she shifted me to Nana's home for my uncle to send me to school. But after three years, my youngest sister, Lani, was born, and when I went home for my summer vacation that year, in 1973, Mum decided to kept me home to go to a high school there. And so I helped take care of my little sister. I was more like her mama.
Now this was the high school where I met the girl who gave me the milk toffee that contained spells within it. From childhood, my mother and close neighbors had always warned me not to take anything from anyone, especially when I was not present at their religious ceremony. Even if I knew that they did some sort of religious service, I should not take anything and eat it. I had also heard stories about other people who had taken eatable things from such people, eaten them, and gotten sick mentally or become possessed or even died. One day, I lost my focus and took a milk toffee from this classmate of mine, whom I thought was a friend, and I ate it not realizing that it was a sacrifice to something evil and a spell was on it. From then on, I noticed weird things happening. I would get short of breath, especially at night. I could not sleep well, and I would get very nervous. I dreamed of hearing dead relatives calling me, or I would get dizzy and nauseous. I also noticed that whenever I was alone in a room in the evening, I would hear voices next to me or even see people walking when I knew I was alone. Now I know that many people do not believe in these things, but to tell you the truth, neither did I at one time. But if you were to experience the things I went through, believe me, you would become a believer. Like I said at the outset, when something happens to a person, only that person can understand how he or she feels; no one else can feel or understand what he or she is going through.
Anyway, one day, my youngest sister, who was just a few months old, got very sick, and Mother took her to the doctor. As they were returning home on a bus, my sister got sicker. She acted as if a fit had taken hold of her. Mother got scared and went straight to my grandmother's home (my father's mother). She then sent a message to tell us where she was. I went to see what had happened. When I arrived, I climbed the stairs to the living room and noticed everyone gathered in front of Grandma's altar where she worshipped. My aunt Di's was very possessed. She saw me and beckoned me. "Come forward, child, before the mother," she said. That was the thing or entity she was possessed by; it had identified itself. This entity looked at me as if it were angry and told me, "Why did you eat that sweet the girl gave you? Don't you know she gave you something to make you become mad?" I was scared and shocked. Grandma told me to bow before the mother, and the entity told me, "Yes, come here and let me touch you, and I will help you for now." Now, no one had told Aunt Di's that I had eaten the milk toffee from this girl at school, but this thing knew and was telling me. My mother and I were shocked. But I was able to tell myself that God knew everything, and I thought that the thing on my aunt was God. I never anticipated it could be something else. Everybody believed that this was the god they worshipped. My aunt had gotten possessed since she was eighteen years old, and my grandmother took her first to the doctor's and then to the priest of their religion, and then she knew that the gods they worshipped had possessed her. So my aunt would call upon these things to cure people whenever they got sick. Yes, I was familiar with them putting their hands on me for blessings, so to speak, which they had done since I was very young. Whenever she would get possessed, the entities would introduce themselves. Sometimes a new name and other times an old one would come on her. So I was accustomed to seeing her in this way, and I gotten over my fears of these things. On most Sundays, my grandmother and my aunt would go to their church so they could give offerings. Sometimes, Grandma would let me visit, and boy, you should have seen what happened there. There would be lots of people attending and giving offerings to each of the idols, and then they would all sit down and sing religious songs and play music. When the head priest came along, man, it was a sight. Many of those who got possessed would get up and dance and smile. If family members wanted to know about something that was going on with their lives, they would tell them. People would bow down to them in order to receive blessings, and yes, I was involved in bowing down too. I used to make sure I bowed to my aunt, for I thought they were gods. Now do not get me wrong, this is my opinion, and I am not contradicting anyone's beliefs, but when I became a Christian, I learned that God cannot and will not possess a human. For many years, I used to believe Auntie Di's was possessed by God, and I used to worship them.
Anyway, my mother then told me to have the teacher move me from where I had been sitting, which was next to the girl who had put a spell on me. You see, that girl's grandmother was known in the villages as the "wish woman," who put spells on people, and that tale was true, because she had dealt with evil, or you could say, the demons. And all the mothers would warn their children not to associate with those people because they had witnessed in the past people getting really sick and even dying from taking food or something from the "wish woman." So everyone would warn against being in close contact with them. Now, as I became very sick, I would still visit my aunt Di's, and she would get possessed in order for the entity to bless me or pass its hands over me so I could feel better. Yes, I used to believe in my aunt very much, but I later learned that God is holy and very powerful and that is why he does not possess humans.
However, another aunt, my father's other sister, who lived in America, decided to sponsor us, and we came to America, the land of opportunities. Both of my parents worked in factories and took care of us. They insisted on sending each one of their children to school so we could have good jobs and better ourselves. Yes, we did. My parents had great expectations for all of us, especially me. And yes, I was someone for a while until I became very sick. Now this sickness was different, and so I become a no one. But something happened to me just as soon as I got my first job, something I cannot understand. It happened in the second month I had been on my job on my birthday, February 27, 1982. I decided to work on a Saturday, for I was asked to work overtime. While I was working, I became agitated—for what reason, I do not know. I cannot explain why every time the windows on the floor I was working on would shake and rock back and forth because of the wind outside, it would make me very nervous and uneasy.
After work, I was heading home, and just as I got off the train at the last stop to go on my way, a feeling of depression came over me, and all of a sudden, I felt like crying. I asked myself, "What is going on?" And as I was nearing my home on Ash Avenue in Flushing, New York, just as I was about to cry for whatever reason, my younger sister saw me and came out to meet up with me. She said, "Mummy got you a cake for your birthday. Don't tell her that I told you." Even then, I was still uncomfortable, but the feeling of being about to cry was gone. I went into the apartment, and my siblings wished me a happy birthday. I forgot about what had happened.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Spell That Shattered My Lifeby Kami Copyright © 2011 by Kami. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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