Third Hand and Second Choice

My life started in the early 1960s in a home on the wrong side of crazy. By six or seven years old, I had been taught how to lie about what was going on in our home, because what was really going on, thanks to my father, was abusive, violent, and against the law. I always wore the mask of a happy girl. I figured that if I smiled, no one would know my home was full of lies, alcohol, and physical abuse. I feared being real so I became a master manipulator at deceit, crafting a wonderland where everything was perfect. On the positive side, that child can either grow up and become an actress, trial attorney, or even a creative artist. On the negative, she can become a criminal. Not once, in the 18 years I spent on the battlefield of my home did I ever think I would grow up to be a criminal. Yet, that is what I became not so long ago.

Life progressed with all its ups and downs, colorfulness, and sometimes darkness. By 2002, I had been married, divorced—twice. I got it right, the third time. My troubles were behind me and I no longer had anything to fear.  Or so I thought.  

My husband had a steady job as an engineer and I decided to try working out of our home, so I could enjoy the flexibility while raising our four kids (his two and my two) who at the time were 9, 9, 11, and 15 years old. I started my own business, helping other companies with grant development and bid proposals. I had always loved to write and had been doing this kind of work in the corporate arena for over 25 years. My business did exceptionally well until 2011 when my income pretty much came to a screeching halt.  Adding to the business uncertainty, we had one child in college and two more graduating from high school and beginning college that fall. In a desperate attempt to keep afloat, I got creative and struck up a deal with a couple of my professional contacts in Chicago. They lent me their big portfolio of clients, and all I had to do was give them 10% commission on each successful job. It was a win-win for all.

After I signed and firmed up 10 clients, they asked if I could also help them seek funding from investors. There, I told my first lie in a long time and began to fear again because I said yes. Yes, I could.

The prospect of being able to support my family overshadowed my moral compass. I told myself I could find a way to find investors, and when that didn’t work, I created a fantasy world where I did, in fact, have everything under control. To avoid confrontation with my clients and contacts, I created fake investors, each with fake emails, phone numbers, and even a backstory.

Before I could stop myself, I had piled up $77,000 of fraudulent money—payment received from my clients for the fake services that I had delivered. It took all of four months for one of my clients to figure out what was really going on, and he contacted the FBI and 22 months in prison was the consequence of my lies.

However, with some things lost, some new things were gained. I gained three friends with the women I shared a bedroom closet with as no one in the real world could ever truly know what it’s like in prison, unless they have been there. I have learned there is nothing in life worth fearing anymore.  I self-destructed to the maximum degree, so I always tell the truth, no matter how uncomfortable I may be. I found out that I did one thing incredibly right with my children. I successfully taught them about unconditional love.   Ultimately one of the most important things we all gained as a family even after all the pain I put everyone through is the knowledge that love can’t save anyone, but it can reach through prison walls to give one strength when they have none left. Little by little, we are leading life together as a family, with all the good moments, bad moments, and great moments. My children are all adults, all have their respective lives, jobs, and significant others. I am now included in their inner circle once again, just like they are mine. They call me for advice which they usually don’t take (LOL), but that’s normal of any adult child with their parent. I call them when I want to meet them somewhere. We do family dinners. It doesn’t mean it’s perfect. As I learned in prison, there isn’t any such thing as a normal life. There is just life.

In the end, my crime wasn’t about why I took the money, it was about me learning to step into the light and shake the dust off all my skeletons and quit fearing I wasn’t enough.  Tonight, in a place far, far away or just around the corner, there lives a little girl or boy who has created a fantasy world to help escape the hellish reality they live with daily.  If your paths cross, please don’t turn away if they are brave enough to share one small real event in their life.  Reach out, open up your heart, your story or your help.  By doing so you give them sanctuary.  They will not understand it or sometimes even know what it is but offer it anyway.  I now volunteer with those that cannot speak into words that which they fear the most. In children, it’s usually the place they call home. I try to bring peace to them because I have finally found it myself and it is the greatest gift I can give anyone.  

 Samantha Seconds

The Winding Road to Prison

When I was a young girl living in a home filled with abuse and domestic violence I dreamt of being swept off my feet by a handsome, young prince who would save me from my life which was filled with fear, confusion and despair.  I also dreamed of becoming an actress who would one day make enough money I would be able to provide a safe home for my mom and brother to live.  As I reached high school age, my dream morphed, and I thought it might be great to become a lawyer.  In some ways I thought that would mean I would be able to practice law and save people from injustices such as, Martin Luther King.  I was a child of the 60’s and a teenager of the 70’s but my homelife was nothing like that which I saw on TV back then. Not once, in the 18 years I spent in my abusive and violent home did I ever think I would grow up to be a criminal.  Yet, that is what I became not so long ago.

Growing up I always thought most people became criminals were addicted to a substance or desperate. That’s not too much off the mark, but as an adult I learned there are some criminals who don’t fit either of those categories and some don’t fit any category at all.  I learned that first hand by living, eating and sleeping with them during my stay at The Federal Correctional Complex Camp located in Coleman, Florida.

It all started with a one lie.  In 2011 in a desperate attempt to keep my business afloat and make money to meet my family’s financial needs, I took on more and more clients that previously I wouldn’t dreamed of trying to assist.  Mainly because I did not have the skill sets needed to assist them.  Much to my surprise and relief, I found out that because I made a very good name for myself in one industry, I could begin to ‘sell’ my skill in another industry I knew next to nothing about.  As a technical writer of over 25 years, I had extensive experience working for and on behalf of a growing list of companies. Over the 10 years I had been in business for myself, I had earned a decent reputation for performing good work at reasonable rates, so my business continued to grow and expand.  All of a sudden in 2011, not only did my company not grow, it stopped almost altogether.  

In 2011, my children were still very young and while my husband made a decent living which landed us in middle class, I carried some of the responsibility to keep that status quo. When I wasn’t able to keep almost any of what I felt was my responsibility and duty in terms of salary or revenue from my company, I doubled down in trying to pick up new customers.  I was finally able to get some new clients through a couple of my contacts in Chicago. I had only met these two gentlemen contacts a couple of times when I was in town for business meetings, but they came highly recommended and had a big portfolio of clients they could send my way. All I had to do was give them 10% commission on each successful customer placement they sent me and help the customers they sent me in any technical writing jobs they needed.  On the surface, it was a win-win for all three of us and for my husband and family as I would finally be bringing in money we all needed for various and ongoing home and children expenses.

After I signed and firmed up the 10th client from helpful gentlemen contacts and paid my 10% to them for their services, I set out to discover what technical writing jobs these customers needed.  Most of the work required by the 10 customers, I had extensive experience in and felt quite comfortable performing.  However, each of these 10 clients needed something I knew nothing about. They needed ‘investment’ funding from investors who are termed, ‘angels’ as these investors are usually wealthy and high-profile investors who like to help out start-ups and worthy companies partly because it is goodwill to pass it on and partly because they can become part owner of a cutting-edge company that they normally would not be cognizant.

When the two gentlemen from Chicago asked me if I could perform that portion of the service, I lied. I told them I could absolutely do it as I knew a lot of ‘angel’ investors from my 25 plus years of technical writing.  Part of that statement was true, I did know a lot of company leaders, movers and shakers from doing business in the corporate arena over 25 years.  However, it was the part of the statement which was a lie, that got me hooked on the line for a lot more than I could ever get myself out of once things started falling apart.  

It true, I may have known of some of these company leaders and had even worked various accounts for their companies, but I did not know them.  In an effort to correct this, I did put out an all-out email barrage trying to find out what I could about their personal and corporate information such as email, personal address, phone number or anything that I could get so I could send them the information on each or all of the 10 company clients.  No effort I tried or subscription service I bought or contact I reached out to could help me get the ‘real’ email addresses, phone numbers, etc. that I needed to make an angel investment pitch.  When I look back in the 20/20 hindsight everyone has, I realize that all I had to do at that point was tell my two gentlemen friends from Chicago that I could not perform the services requested by the companies and could they give my back my 10% commissions back that I gave them so I could return all the money the customers had paid me.  It came to a total of $77,000.  But instead of telling anyone I couldn’t do what they wanted I not only lied again, I created a bigger web of deceit and created fake emails and phone numbers for angel investors I told my customers were interested in learning more about their companies.  Of course, I was the one at the end of all those phone calls and wrote all the ‘fake’ emails to the 10 customer company contacts.

When one of the 10 customers figured out what was really going on he contacted the FBI.  The FBI came to my home at 5:00 a.m. one spring morning in 2012 to retrieve all cell phones, computers, folders and files. Within 10 days, I hired an attorney, told him I was guilty and was ready to tell the federal judge that as well. Because the federal government doesn’t work very quickly, I pled guilty in the winter of 2012 and was sentenced in the spring of 2013 to 30 months.  In the federal system, a sentenced person is allowed to ‘self-surrender,’ which in layman’s terms means I was responsible for turning myself into the Coleman Prison Camp in the summer of 2013.  

In preparation, I watched a popular show at the time called, “Orange is the New Black,” thinking this would be what prison will be like, so it will help me to know how things work and happen at a federal prison.  I thought the show was terrifying and that I probably wouldn’t survive a week if that is what I was about to experience.

However, as it is in life, prison on TV shows vs. prison in real like are nothing alike.  Some things were worse than portrayed on “Orange is the New Black,” and some of the types of people and events weren’t ever present at the Coleman Prison Camp in Florida.

When I arrived, they made me strip down just like the do in the TV shows and movies which have prison scenes in them and that in and of itself was enough for me to take multiple self-vows of I never will, never again promises to myself and God.  The prison guards who perform this service are some of the scariest people you could ever meet.  I am sure they are that way because they have seen it all and if I met them in a grocery store today, they would probably be a nice as they could be, but do not think for one minute they will be nice to you during the process of turning yourself in to begin whatever sentence a judge gives you regardless of whether or not you are a drug dealer, white collar criminal or rapist. They don’t care.  To them, you are simply an ‘inmate,’ and they will give you a brand-new inmate number and picture to go with your name to prove that point.

I was then told to report to a particular building at the end of the ‘campus’ where I was to see my ‘case worker’ who would assign me a bed.  Prior to walking to the end of the campus to report to my case worker I was given two sheets, two sets of khaki clothes, three socks, three underwear’s and bras with a pair of work boots that were one size too big.  To top it off they gave me one very scratchy wool blanket and sad looking pillow.  Somehow, I was to carry all of this with me without a bag to carry it in and forget about asking anyone where this ‘building’ I was going to was as I assure you no one (not other inmates or guards) is ever going to speak to you much less help you.

I stumbled around, stopping every few minutes to rearrange my load of items or pick up ones that dropped from my hands and finally found the building I was looking for and stumbled through the door.  Let me tell you nothing, nothing and nothing can prepare you for the sights, smell and activity you see going on around you when you walk through the door of a living facility that is housing federal female inmates. There were women yelling, screaming, laughing and crying and sitting at almost every table and/or chair that is set up in what is called the ‘common’ area.  There were six TV’s about 24 inches long hanging up high so if you wanted to watch TV, you sat on your ‘assigned’ chair, cranked your neck so far back that by the time even an hour-long show ended, the crick in your neck would not be worth the effort.  In fact, it was so not worth the pain that came with it, I watched less than two or three hours of TV the entire 20 months I was there.  But walking into a building with such strange smells with a noise index I had never heard before was something I will never forget.  I remember asking a couple of women who my case worker was, as I was supposed to see them to be assigned a bed.  I was told I would have to write a request to see the case worker and she/he would see me whenever.  I think I stood there for 10 minutes with my mouth hanging open as I had no idea how to write this request, where I would put it once I did, how I would write it since I had no pen, pencil or paper and to top it off I still had no idea where I would sleep that night.  I stood there unsure what to do when all of a sudden someone came in and yelled as loud as they could beside me that it was ‘count time.’  Since I had no idea what count time was or what I was supposed to do, I just stood there.  After about 10 or 15 minutes, I looked around and I noticed it was very quiet (which even then I could tell was unusual), and I was the only one standing in the middle of the room.  Everyone else had disappeared into their ‘rooms.’  So, I watched and waited….

I didn’t have to wait long as before I could turn around to find someone else who may help me, a guard was yelling at me that he was going to ‘write me up,’ as I wasn’t in my room. When I told him, I didn’t have a room yet, he yelled at me, “‘is that my problem or yours?”

When I told him, it seemed to be my problem he told me was going to write me up for backtalking to him. This all happened to me in the first 60 minutes after I self-surrendered.  I just stood there looking at him and crying.  Actually, I never stopped crying for about three weeks after my self-surrender, but after the second week, I got pretty used to crying, taking breaths and speaking when I needed to, so I could be understood. At the beginning, I couldn’t even do that.  During this guard’s interrogation of me, I was told to, ‘wait in the office’ where he would ‘write me up’ after he finished count.  Since I had no idea what office he wanted me to wait at since there are several at the entrance into the building, I just stood in the hallway, holding and dropping my assigned clothes, sheets, pillow and boots and waited. When he came out and saw me standing there yet again defying his orders, he cussed, called me a lot of names, that I later read in the ‘inmate rights and policy handbook,’ he is not allowed to call me and finally took me to a woman who had watched this whole thing and never said a word while she worked at her desk.  I find out from her that she is my caseworker.  

Just in case you think having a caseworker in prison is anything like having a caseworker in the ‘real world,’ let me correct that thinking straight away.  A caseworker in prison holds your life in her/his hands. She/he submits your visitation list, your release date, your medical requests, etc.  But most of them don’t care one bit and if they turn in your requests the first six months you are there or in the first three years, it truly doesn’t matter to them.  If you aren’t nice to him/her and respectful and cheerful, they will eat you up and spit you out.  I witnessed it many times.  But I was very lucky.  I got one who at first impression, I felt, had sat there and watched this whole debacle with the guard with disinterest and disdain.  However, unbeknownst to me, she had been taping the officer the entire time he was in my face.  Did that make it better to find out months later?  No, not really.  But I will say that Ms. Gardener was very kind and nice to me when I did have to turn in anything for her to process and when she had to submit something for me (i.e. visitation list or my release papers), she did it almost as soon as I requested it.  For that small mercy I was grateful.  She assigned me a bottom bunk in a room with three other women.  The room for four grown women was the size of my master bedroom closet at home.  But I got three good roommates who started to fill in the gaps of information you don’t really want to know but need to survive.

I learned the smell came from the microwaves, which were beyond disgusting on the inside and out combined with the bathrooms.  Two odors you should never put together is cooking food and bathroom smells.  The loudness never, ever goes away, except after the last ‘count’ which was 11:00 p.m. in which you still have to stand and be counted even if you were sound asleep.  If you ever missed a count because maybe you were in the bathroom throwing up, as soon as you got out of the bathroom you would be written up and put in segregation to be sent to the ‘real prison.’  I figured this was the ‘real prison’ and it was bad enough, so I had no intention of ever missing a ‘count’ and I never did.  They also filled me in on how to order supplies from commissary and pay for them on a strange account your family has to set up for you and other such things.  They gave me toothbrushes, toothpaste, combs, real soap, and countless other things until I could get processed and situated with money and commissary items.  They listened to me cry and relay my story as they cried and relayed theirs to me.  They offered me comfort when I deserved none.  Hope when I had none.  Faith that this too will pass when I was convinced that time was standing still, and I would never get home.  

I am still friends with them today years after my release as only they know and understand the nightmare, horror, shame, guilt and despair we felt every day for doing this to our families, our loved one and ourselves.  I found that if others only see you as a number, you start seeing yourself as less than human as well.

It’s true I could not feel sorry for myself as I had brought this on myself.  Its also true I deserved to be punished for my actions.  It’s even true that I should wear the scarlet letter of ex-inmate for the rest of my life.  However, that being said, my family did nothing wrong and they were treated just as badly when they came and saw me.  The only thing they had done was love me.  To most of the guards and staff they would have to meet at every visitation they were treated with about as much disdain and arrogance as I was each and every day.  That’s what broke my heart the most.  I had already hurt my wonderful and beautiful family and they were being punished right along with me because they not only loved and missed me, but they had to be degraded every time they visited me.

I can honestly say nothing in my life prepared me for this experience, but I am convinced nothing in life could prepare anyone for this experience.  What got me through was the love and care my family gave me from the outside and it reached all the way through the walls of that prison camp and held me when I felt I couldn’t take it another day.  I learned to care immensely for the women in my room who shared and opened up themselves, so I could learn that I was stronger linking my arms with them and climbing the mountain we had to climb each day than I ever would have been on my own. Most importantly I depended on my faith in God and forgiveness of my sins to help me start to believe that while my victims may never forgive me, I could apologize to each and every one of them and make sure my restitution was paid as soon as I could do so.  I did do that on both counts.

In the end it wasn’t about how or when I could pay back the money I owed or about how many times I said I was sorry to my family, loved ones, friends and victims.  It was about me learning to love myself.  I had never learned how to do that growing up.  I never learned it being a wife and mother. I love fiercely and protectively my children, husband and even friends.  But I never included myself in that group.  I was in the group of those I don’t love.  I barely liked myself and I am still learning who I really am.  It took months and years of therapy and mindfulness for me to come to a place in my life where I am learning to love myself. That doesn’t mean that anyone out there in the world should care nor does it justify what I did to innocent people. But I do think it represents what can happen if anyone out there does not seek help if they grow up in an abusive and violent home through therapy of some sort.  Healing oneself, even from someone else’s actions is a healthy thing to do and one that has offered me a future I never imagined and its not a new car or house or trip to a fancy beach.  It’s peace.  Peace with myself and peace with my past. That is the greatest of all presents I give myself and to my family.  

Samantha Seconds

Without Shape

I was born in Washington D.C. in 1945, right after WWII. I didn’t grow up with a mother, father, or even a family. As a little girl, I used to wonder about my father. I imagined him as a brave soldier who, upon returning from fighting in WWII, met my mother and fell in love at first sight. It wasn’t until I was six or seven years old and in my third or fourth foster family that I understood what really happened.

My mother had worked as a prostitute. There were whispers every time she came and visited me at my foster family’s home or when she left me at a new one. The whispers meant I would never be rescued by my father. She simply didn’t know who my father was. After accepting this harsh fact, I reassured myself that at least my mother loved me, even if couldn’t take care of me. She always came to me wherever I was staying. Until the Christmas she didn’t.

I was eight-years old and I remember having on my very favorite red dress that my mother had bought me the previous Christmas. It didn’t fit anymore, but I made it work. I would be beautiful for her return. But as I sat on the front porch top step at my foster family’s home, the Christmas lights came on up and down the street and I started to feel really cold. I never did find out what happened to her the Christmas Eve of 1953.

After that Christmas Eve, I don’t remember believing in anything good in life. Instead, I knew a whole lot of the bad things children should never know or experience, and I could recite them song-and-verse to anyone if they would have asked. No one ever did, so I kept all the horrors that occurred to me late at night by men with names I cannot remember.

                        By the time I was 18, I knew two things. My red hair and blue eyes attracted men, and two, I intended to persuade one of those men to get away from Washington DC. I started my quest for love in a bar in Georgetown, Virginia. I don’t know if I found love, but I did find my ticket out of poverty. I met a man in the bar that night who took me home with him and married me a week later.

We stayed married for ten years and had two beautiful children. First, I had a daughter I named Angel. Two years later, I had a boy I named Gabriel. I loved them with all my heart, but I had no idea how to be as a mother. I studied women in the park or at the stores with their children, and tried to do what they did. But this was never comfortable because my words and actions only made me into a stranger.

My husband Gil used to hit me from time to time (nothing I wasn’t used to), but as he started drinking more, the fights became more frequent. One night it got so bad, I waited until he fell asleep and walked out the door. I left my beautiful Angel and brave Gabriel behind as I had no money. I swore to myself I would be back. I would find a way.

But I knew I was lying to myself. I had no idea if I would ever see them again.

In another city, in another bar, I met an attorney who filed my divorce said he’d married me once it was finalized with the condition I could never bring another man’s child into his home. I agreed because I thought time and love would change his mind. The only thing that changed over time was that his hits got harder and the rapes became more painful. I left him one weekend when he was away at a work conference, but this time, I took furniture and clothes with me.

I drove straight to Georgetown, to the house I left five years ago, only to find it empty and leaning to one side like a sapling bent over from a hard wind. I had no phone number for Gil and I couldn’t find him in the phone book. I had no family to ask for help so I walked away, feeling shattered and twisted like an old lady, 33-years old and nothing to show for it.

Like so many other horrors in my life, I pushed down the feelings and drove away from Georgetown on I-95, determined to get my life in shape so I could find my children. But again, I knew I was lying to myself.

In 1978, I divorced my second husband, and once more met a man. I vaguely remember him for his big brown eyes which hid a temper that did more damage to me in six months than my previous two marriages combined. Once we divorced, I swore to myself I would never marry again—and this time I wasn’t lying to myself. I meant it and I never did. But my alternate reality wasn’t a big step up for me. In fact, it was decidedly just one step away from hell itself.

After my third divorce, I had nothing. No money, no education, and no man to pay my bills. I got a job washing dishes and waiting tables for a small diner in Lubbock, Texas and plotted how to get enough money so I could make a life for myself and find my children.

Since I was determined to never marry or even look at another man, I figured the bank would be a good place to start. I mean, that’s where the money was. I could make some withdrawals from them with a fake gun, a note, and a wig. I don’t have a clue why I felt like this was my only option, but I promise you it was, and after I saw Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on TV one night at the diner, I thought it looked easy enough. 

It took me a month to work up the courage to rob my first bank, but I netted $2100 and had no overhead other than my car’s gasoline. I drove to another town in Texas and started my crime spree which took me through two states and eleven banks in about a year. It was fun and nerve-wracking at the same time. I just pretended to be in a play on stage, or some famous actress playing a role on Broadway.  I never thought of it as real because I didn’t have a real gun, I didn't have any intention to hurt anyone, and I needed the money more than the bank did. 

I was caught mid-1979 when a police officer pulled me over for a busted tail light. Once he saw my wooden gun and wig in my back seat, he became puffed up with pride. He had caught the “blue-eyed, female bank robber” who was being followed by news crews. I felt relief that I wouldn’t have to worry about money for a little while.

Well, the judge ended up giving me more than a little while: 45 years.

I realized a long time ago that without a family, I never had a shape. I was formless, ethereal. In my mind, I always compared it to watching water lose itself in sand. Sand only holds a shape water gives it—until the water is no more. Then the sand reverts to a handful bleak grains.

In 1981, the second year I was in prison, some people on the outside who had heard about my long sentencing got me in touch with my children. These wonderful people with no agenda other than to help. They gave me a drop of water to hold my shape until I was able to write my children to let them know I was so sorry for everything and that I loved them.

But, a letter stating I’m sorry doesn’t really make up for disappearing from a child’s life and they barely remembered me at all. Both had been told by Gil that I died. My son wrote back once, but my daughter sent me letters and pictures every three to four months. These envelopes were filled with lives I’d never met, with grandchildren I never knew. Yet, they gave me comfort and maybe a little hope. Every letter brought a drop of water which sustained me until the next one came.

In 2015, I found out I was dying of pancreatic cancer. In 2017, FMC Carswell let me go home on what is called “compassionate release” as most dying ex-offenders do not commit new crimes. Angel, my beautiful daughter, let me come and live with her after I left the halfway house in Houston, Texas. For a week, I lived in a world of comfort knowing a backyard that had grass I could walk on in bare feet and a tree with a hammock. She had a refrigerator with food I could cook for her. Angel was divorced, her kids grown, and I prayed she would let me meet them before I died. I started to believe I was forgiven for the life I wasted, the hurts I caused, and the pain I inflicted.

On a sunny day in June of 2017, Angel drove me back to the halfway house and told me to get out of the car. She had already called told them I really was too much trouble and she didn’t have the patience or time to put up with my medical needs. I was shapeless once again.

I didn’t blame Angel then and I don’t blame her now. My story was told to a church from another resident at the halfway house. In the church, I found new friends who took me in, gave me a home, and fed me well. They drove me to doctor appointments when I wasn’t ready to take the bus. They gave me clothes before I knew what size I was. I was so afraid to believe that someone, maybe one of them in the small group which took turns helping me when I had to be admitted to a hospital or get chemo, would learn to love me.

Then, in the Christmas of 2017, one them read my heart. I had longed for something that was mine—just mine—so I could practice my newly discovered ability to have and give love. She gave me a puppy. I named the puppy Hope.

Hope, 2018.

It’s true, in my childhood I never had a family. As a young woman, I never knew love with a man and selfishly thought only of myself instead of the two beautiful souls God gave me to love. As a woman, I drank too much, took drugs, and lost my soul to emptiness with money stolen from banks. Yet, in dying, I knew life. In cancer, I found love. The friends I have met hold my hand when I need it most and give me shape.

I only have a few weeks left to live in this world, but when I join the next world, I will have a soul filled with love ready to take the next step into forever.

   This is the    story of Susan

Susan grew up in foster care with the hope of one day returning to her family. When that didn’t happen, she spiraled into a life without direction. After three abusive marriages and not a cent to her name, Susan decided to rob a bank, get her kids back, and start over. But after serving 45 years in prison, Sue found that love does not have to come from blood-relation, just from those who are willing to give.

| Writer: Samantha Seconds | Editor: Colleen Walker |

The Waves of the Mekong River

I was born in Laos in 1964 to a family that already had two little girls: Akela, 4, and Vatsana, 2. My father had so wanted a boy, but alas, I was girl number three. My mother told him not to worry, for the next baby would be a boy to carry on his proud family name. To him, our name was our wealth. I can remember many nights when we sat around the dying fire after dinner while my father told stories of yesterday. Me and my two sisters would sit around with eyes shining waiting to hear how our royal ancestors (many generations removed) fought battles, governed a kingdom, and had children that would lead the next generation. I suppose we saw my father as another king in this fierce lineage. He was our noble, intelligent, selfless hero who could win any battle to protect us.From the year I was born until 1973, my country was bombed every eight minutes, day and night. When the U.S. became involved in the Vietnam War, Laos was swept into the conflict simply because of our strategic location on Mekong River, a small but vital pathway to China. We understood that the Americans were trying to disrupt the flow of the North Vietnamese troops and supplies, but all I knew was a life lived among a cratered and savaged landscape, where I would eavesdrop into my father’s conversations with neighbors who had lost their children to the bombs.I was 11 years old when my life changed forever. On a hot summer day in 1975, my father came home from his job where he worked in diplomacy and community development for USAID. My father could speak four languages, but not one of them could save him or us from what was about to happen in Laos. Without greeting my sisters and me as he passed, my father pulled my mother away from us to where they could speak privately. When my parents came out of the room they were talking in, they never told us what was going on. Instead, we went about our normal routines while my father watched with a face soaked in a lifetime of emotions. That evening still haunts me.The next day, we found out that the Laos People’s Revolutionary Party had taken over our country and our King had been forced to abdicate. The People’s Revolutionary Party started rounding up anyone who was a threat to them and sent them to “seminars” which they said would re-educate and advance Laos into a stronger and unified country under their rule.My family was on borrowed time as my father was labeled an “imperialist slave,” and we represented everything this new government hated. Quickly, my father found an official he could bribe to get us to Thailand and into the U.N. Refugee camps. I don’t know how much he paid, but the next morning we were gathering up what supplies and food we would take with us, our hope resting on this hasty promise—the promise that became a threat to our very lives.Soldiers burst through our door with machine guns and started beating and hitting my mother. My father fought with the ferocity of ten men, but without a gun he was quickly overtaken and tied up. Yet, he kept trying to get to us. Over and over again, he would wrench free of his ropes to attack one of them, and over and over again they would beat him almost to death and tie him to a chair.My sisters and I were pulled to the side and forced to watch my mother be raped by each soldier. My father had to watch it, too, and whatever fight was left in him suddenly fell away. When the last soldier was done with my mother, one of the soldiers went up behind my father’s chair where he was bound and shot him in the head. I can still hear my mother’s scream every time I lay down to sleep at night.They grabbed my mother up from the floor where she was rocking back and forth with no clothes on, threw a blanket on her, and marched us out of the house and were taken to a type of jail in one of the re-education camps, which was the worst as it was under the ground where we couldn’t see the sun or breathe any air that wasn’t putrid and foul. From 1975 to 1979 we toiled underground. We worked constructing sawmills and cutting bamboo. We did whatever they told us, repeated what they had taught us, gave thanks to each of them for how they opened our eyes to their way of thinking. Each night, my sisters and I huddled together with our mother and tried to believe we would find a way to escape. We had no money to bribe anyone, and my mother was barely able to shuffle around.My sisters who were 13 and 15 by this time, took over my parenting. I cannot remember how many times we were beaten, but my oldest sister Akela was noticed by several of the soldiers and she too had to endure what my mother did. But my sister Akela was strong. Her name means “noble” and she lives through its meaning. She refused to cower and would not let them take her mind even if they had the power to take her body. She told me and my sister that life may lead us in a direction we do not always foresee, but if we are to survive the tragedies that we may experience then we must grasp onto fate and own it as we move forward. This powerful lesson has been my guide through many years.In 1978, my sister had a baby boy we named Keowynn which means “God’s gracious gift.” Once he was born, my mother slowly started to take an interest in us again and became almost fanatical about watching over Keowynn. Here was the boy my father dreamed of and wanted so many years ago.I don’t know what Akela did, but somehow in 1979, she arranged our escape into Thailand. As we left, Keowynn was strapped onto my sister’s back so we could safely carry him over the Mekong River into Thailand.The Mekong River is known for its unexpected, swift currents, and none of us had ever had the chance to learn how to swim. A strong current came at us from nowhere and Akela was swept under for only a few seconds. I saw what happened in front of me but was too little to give my sister strength.A mother’s love—even in its cracked shell—is a powerful thing to behold. As we were being thrust under and fighting to get out of the river and to my sister, my mother reached five feet beyond what physics would tell you is impossible, and got a handful of my sister’s hair to pull her up. We finally staggered out of the whirlwind of that incredibly strong current only to realize that the sling we had fashioned for her back to hold 9-month-old Keowynn was empty. He had slipped into the water with no sound, swallowed by the last remnant of Laos we ever saw, the Mekong River.In our agony, Akela’s weeping was the heaviest. But in the majesty of her broken heart, she spoke the words she taught us in the underground. She said we must remember that fate leads us in a direction, and we must own it if we wish to keep living. So, we did. We moved forward shirking from the darkness of the tragedy and looked up towards our future to see what it might be.We finally reached the refugee camp, but conditions weren’t much better. We were so poor and so hungry all the time, and we witnessed daily acts of violence. Still, we were together. When I was 16, I met the boy who later became the man I married. His name was Saengchanh and he reminded me of my father so much in spirit. He was noble, kind, and strong, and yet so compassionate. He still believed in the good in the world when joy had left my family long ago, and best of all, he made us laugh.It wasn’t until 1981 that we were able to finally get an official document created by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) which was placed inside a large white bag marked “IOM” (International Organization for Migration). We could leave. Our immediate family now consisted of my six-week-old baby boy named Kham (meaning “precious” or “gold”), my two sisters, my mother, mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and husband. We made the journey on a refugee resettlement boat.Unfortunately, the horrors of our path clung to us tightly. We watched many people being murdered, and I, a nursing mother, was beaten and raped. By grace, my husband wasn’t killed. In fact, no one in my family was killed during the trip.We were in the second or third wave of refugees and we worked closely with the Americans, who finally assigned us to Catholic Charities in Richmond, Virginia.Catholic Charities was a beacon of hope. They gave us housing and $200 dollars a month to purchase groceries. We were assigned a kind counselor who taught us how to spend the $200 in the grocery store to make it last—and I still smile when I think about how we taught her how $200 for groceries can last for two months. You must simply buy what usually isn’t bought, and eat sparingly, which we learned to do through the harsh years of our past.A funny thing happened to Akela when we got to the United States. She started slipping away from us in body and spirit. It was as if she had been strong for as long as she could, and once we were safe, she retreated into her past. She no longer owned her own fate but rather it pulled her under, like the waves of the Mekong River which took her son.My mother did become whole again, or as she tells us, as whole as she can be with her soul residing in the past and her heart in the present. My other sister, Vatsana had escaped bodily harm to herself, but mentally endured every beating and rape we all experienced. On the whole, she has grasped her own fate and moved forward by marrying and having a lively family of five. My mother beams with joy every time they come over for holidays or when she visits (which is often).My husband and myself opened up a nail salon in Richmond, Virginia in 1988, and have since expanded our business to include several stores, salons, and even a hotel. I had another baby when I was 23, and both my children have finished their education in Ivy League colleges. I never had the chance to learn in school after I was 11, but I have learned a lot about life.I have learned that you can win if you don’t fear fate, and that death is less of an end, and more of a returning. Tragedies that happen can be overcome by taking them and making them yours. Real love stories never have endings, even after death. And finally, I learned fear gives two choices. One is to forget everything and run away, and the other…is to face fear and rise. Everyone has that choice, no matter their circumstance. This is the story of Kim MandaKim was born during the violent times of the Vietnam War, and later the Laos People’s Revolutionary Party. When she was just 11, her father was beaten and murdered in front of her, while her mother and sisters were forced into underground “re-education” camps. In the dark times of Kim’s childhood, her older sister encouraged her to take ahold of their fate. This sentiment is what kept their family looking forward.Kim now lives in Richmond, Virginia with her family af

Seconds and Inches

My life was lived seconds and inches from disaster, almost from the time I was born. To understand how an innocent, healthy child lived so close to the shadow of death, I must take you back with me to when it was 1967 and I was six years old sitting in the back seat of a 1966 Red Ford Mustang being driven by my dad. 

                    The car was going very fast up and down the snowy, mountain roads of West Virginia because my dad had one agenda on that drive. He was trying to kill my mom and me. Ostensibly, he was driving us to spend a “Merry Christmas” with my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, but that wasn’t his true purpose.  During the drive, my mom and dad got into yet another fight.  Dad was yelling, screaming, hitting my mom upside the head and telling both of us he was going to kill us all on the next curve in the road. He’d drive the car right into the void of night where I could see only the snow and tops of trees that lined the downward slope of the mountainside.

As usual, I felt conflicted, both loving my dad and fearing him. I tried so hard to please him so he wouldn’t get mad or upset, but my mom was braver than me and argued with him which I was convinced would one day kill us. I tried hard to protect my mom, but I was only six years old and had no clear idea of how to do that.

Watching my mom and dad fight and hearing him say, over and over again, how he was going to kill us all by driving off the mountain road, I was terrified. Luckily, he didn’t drive off the side of the mountain that night and we all survived the Christmas trip to West Virginia. However, the violence continued and so did the many episodes of threats to kill, or violent beatings. Because of the ongoing and continual violence, my home was never peaceful.  I never associated home with love, peace or happiness. It just had endless days of violence and nights of sheer terror. I learned later that my dad didn’t care if he died, but if he did, we would die with him. His greatest weapon against us was his inability to care whether any of us lived or died. That was a difficult pill to swallow.

I was an unsuccessful peacemaker growing up. My childhood’s misdirected logic told me that if I tried harder to be perfect, my dad would quit beating my mom. I tried to excel at school and get more A’s than B's.  I became a Majorette in high school so at least I could pretend that my life was at least a little bit “normal.” I was the girl always smiling. I figured that if I smiled at my classmates, no one would know what was really going on with me. No one would know my home was full of lies, alcohol, and physical abuse. I become a master manipulator at deceit, not something one should ever want their child to become.

When I was sixteen, I had to call the police on my dad after a particularly horrendous beating. The police arrived but were unable to help given that it was 1977 and domestic and child abuse wasn’t taken as seriously back then. I sat in shock listening to the police officer tell me that I only had two choices in this situation—my three-year-old brother and I could be placed in foster care but in separate homes, or I could go back into the house and pretend nothing had ever happened. I didn’t know what to say or do. I did know that my home had just turned into a living hell even worse than it had been before and there wasn’t ever going to be an easy way out.

I stumbled back in the house, praying for once that my mom and dad would leave me alone.  Of course, my dad realized that I called the police on him and not only did the police know he beat me and my mom but worse......our neighbors knew. This was a big deal to him because it meant the picture-perfect life we presented to the public now had a big, black X marked through it. My dad hated when the truth came out about anything that did not embrace his “perfect” family lie.

Home became a more intense battlefield to endure each day. It left me trembling with fear, sick to my stomach and a nervous wreck. Every day is a repeat of the day before where my dad would threaten us with things much worse than the night I had to call the police. If he heard us whispering, if he thought one of us looked at him funny, if we talked on the phone for too long, or if he was drinking. In essence, if we did anything including breathing, it set him off. I remember him telling us with relish that we would never know what or when it would be, only that worse was coming.

The shared guilt lived in my house between my mom and myself. Our relationships with others were affected because we were hiding a huge secret. Family members didn’t know about the abuse and we wore masks faking happiness. Instead of finding the courage to speak up about our destructive home life, my mother and I instead pretended like it wasn’t happening. We told ourselves the beatings and the yelling wouldn’t happen again, but in our hearts, we knew that was a lie.

Since I had been trained into wearing a mask to make everyone think my life was perfect, I carried this habit into adulthood. I left home, went to college, graduated and got married in 1982, and had my two boys. Still, the monsters of my past remained in my head, lurking around every corner. I gravitated towards men that were violent or incomplete who had no understanding of healthy relationships. Then again, neither did I.  

The price I paid for that moth to the flame mentality was more beatings, abuse, a divorce, and a second marriage, my house being burned down and a second divorce. The only thing golden that came out of my first relationship was my two boys. Somehow, my kids were always able to have some distance from the abuse I endured. They were always away from home when the beatings took place. I liked to think that what was happening to me wasn’t affecting them, but I was kidding myself. Kids are smarter than we think and even though I tried to shield them, they had seen things they shouldn’t have had to see at their ages, and for that, I felt awful.  

In 2003, I got married for the third time, and this time, it stuck. Despite feeling a stronger connection this time around, I still kept many secrets of my past hidden away. I went through life with the mask firmly in place until it all became too much, and I self-destructed. I stopped killing myself to be the “perfect” wife, mom, and daughter. It all became too much.

I went off the deep end in 2013, letting my past monsters get the best of me. I went to a white collar “prison camp” in for wire fraud and had never felt so ashamed of myself. I only stayed there for 18 months but it was enough to scare me, open my eyes and make me aware that my own self-destructive behavior had to be helped. I had to get help. I had lived so long under the guise that I was someone who could handle herself. I had refused to admit that I needed help addressing, helping and healing myself from past abuses. I deluded myself into thinking that I was strong and wise enough to deal with it all by myself. But I was kidding myself. 

I finally stopped hiding and telling people about my past because I could not share my story without support while I was telling it, and I could not begin to heal until I knew I wasn’t alone. Knowing there were others out there who were as damaged as I was who needed someone to support and hear them so they too could begin to heal became my calling. It has been one of the most liberating experiences. I started writing down my memories, delving into difficult moments so that I could find closure and move on. When I finally talked about it, I felt free, like the monsters of my past had less control over me.

Today, when I talk about the past or share my story, I keep some details to myself that are too horrific, but I’m working to open up more. This has been difficult for me when I was raised to keep my mouth shut about it. From my life, I learned that no matter how hard it is to leave your dark past behind, you must try so that you have a chance at a better life. I don’t have what one would call a “happy ending.” I regret almost everything that has happened in the past. I have caused damage that I can’t repair, but I can share my story in hopes of help others see that they aren’t alone. I can’t change my past, but I can alter the present to become a better person and combat the demons that haunt me. I let the demons of my past bring me down many times in my life, but today I’m striving to keep them at arm’s length, so I have a chance a moving forward and finding happiness.

   This is the story of Samantha Seconds

 Samantha resides in Houston, Texas with her husband. After a rough childhood full of abuse that couldn’t be talked about, Samantha learned to wear a mask and pretend life was perfect which led her to destructive behaviors in life including choosing abusive men and serving some jail time. Through what she’s been through, she’s learned that she will never heal if she does not tell her story, so she shares it with others.  If you wish to see more stories by Samantha or other talented authors go to www.ourlifelogs.com

Samantha loves to travel, read, write and walk in her spare time. Her interests revolve around volunteering and advocacy for those who are disenfranchised, abused, suffer from mental illness, drug/alcohol abuse and/or have a criminal record. She knows she will never be able to do enough, volunteer enough or advocate enough for those who have no voice for whatever reason, but she still plans to do all she can.