From Trinidad – Hope and Forgiveness

Paula: [00:00:00] . Welcome to chatting with the experts, a podcast for immigrant women from Nigeria, Ghana, and the Caribbean.

[00:00:08] These are women who have   relocated to the UK and the U S. In this podcast, we talk about the struggles. but we also highlight the triumphs  while sharing resources and experiences that our fellow, I should say my fellow immigrant sisters can benefit from .My guest today is a Caribbean sister.

[00:00:33] Adessa Barker is from Trinidad. And my main thing is that I want her to tell her story. So I’m going to ask you  Adessa, took, tell us all about yourself and let’s go from there. I’m so happy to have you on Chatting with the Experts..

[00:00:49]Adessa: Yes. Thank you so much for having me on here Paula. Is truly an honor.

[00:00:54] I look forward to really just talking with you and just sharing my story. As you said, I was born and raised in Trinidad and Tobago, small Caribbean twin Island. And it’s within stones throw of a communist country, Venezuela. So it was really interesting growing up there and my family and I migrated to America when I was a teenager .My dad and my mom decided they wanted a better life for us.

[00:01:20]My mom was always a very innovative person and she didn’t have a high school degree or anything like that. She had I think less than a second grade education, but she was really tenacious. She was very bold. At one point she said to my Dallas and I want a better life.

[00:01:39] And at the time nobody had made it to

[00:01:42] america, but my mom said,” I want to go to America. “Now you have to,

[00:01:47] you have to understand that at this point, most Trinidadians never made it to America. America was some sort of an aspirational dream. And especially for

[00:01:57] someone black, poor

[00:02:00] uneducated, it’s what are you talking?

[00:02:03]It’s something you can’t even fathom. But she said, I am going to America. No one believed her,

[00:02:08] but she did it.

[00:02:10] And one day my dad was looking for her. She didn’t tell anyone. She didn’t even tell my dad. She told her dad, but not my dad, her husband, and we couldn’t find her. And the next thing you know, she called on the phone and , my dad said, where are you?

[00:02:23] Who is going to do Adessa’s hair? I’m like four. And

[00:02:27] she said you’ll figure it out. I’m in America.

[00:02:29] And so that was my mom and she’s always breathing life into me. And and long story short is my mom eventually came back and she went to America several times after that working for a family.

[00:02:40] And the family said, , we really love you. We want to sponsor your family. So my mom came back and she said to my dad, listen, I think we should relocate to America. Let me go. It’s going to take me about a year or two and I’ll file for everyone. And we can all relocate. My dad said , I’m the man typical sort of Caribbean, macho ness.

[00:03:01] I’m going over there. I need to

[00:03:03] be the one. And she’s you don’t even know anything about America. You’ve never been there. I don’t know why she gave in, but she did. And he was supposed to go to New York and a church was going to sponsor him.

[00:03:14] And within a year we were all supposed to be able

[00:03:16] Paula: [00:03:16] to come long story short he deviated, from the plan.

[00:03:20]He ended up going to Washington DC, where some of his sisters had

[00:03:23] Adessa: [00:03:23] gone and he divorced my mom

[00:03:27] Paula: [00:03:27] and got married to one of their

[00:03:29] Adessa: [00:03:29] friends. Yeah. And things just got really dicey from there. My mom decided to leave to go to another Caribbean Island to find a way to get to America because things had changed and she couldn’t get back into America going to the us embassy.

[00:03:44]And it would be. Over almost eight years until we would actually makeit to America. So not only did I lose my dad, but then months later I lost my mom and  she took us she dropped us by her dad. And I didn’t see my mom for about five years,

[00:04:04] Paula: [00:04:04] months later, you lost your mom. You mean she left y’all in Trinidad and went to another.

[00:04:10] Caribbean Island.

[00:04:11] Adessa: [00:04:11] Yes, exactly.

[00:04:12] Yeah, she didn’t die. Thank God. So she went to Antiga we didn’t know anything she never called or wrote or anything. Maybe once one time or

[00:04:21] something, but we were on our own and it

[00:04:24] was really devastating for a child. And eventually she came back and then she said, , you know what?

[00:04:30] You guys need to go. You’re going to America.

[00:04:33] Paula: [00:04:33] So I’m going to stop you there for one second. Cause you were saying we, so you had a sibling?

[00:04:38] Adessa: [00:04:38] My brother.

[00:04:39] Paula: [00:04:39] Okay. Okay. Got you now.

[00:04:41] Adessa: [00:04:41] Yes, so I was the oldest and my brother, my mom had five other kids before she met my dad.  But my brother and I she had for my dad.

[00:04:49] So she came back to Trinidad and she said, look, you guys are going

[00:04:53] up. And so she did.

[00:04:55] She had my dad write a letter. And she went to the embassy. She got some paperwork and they gave us a visitor visa. So we had a three month

[00:05:03] visa to visit America, .

[00:05:05] And so we did and we

[00:05:06] were really excited. They threw a party for

[00:05:08] us. It’s you guys are going to be rich. We saw all the movies, wow. Snow! Life is going to be perfect. And we got to the airport. Now, this is in America, my brother and I fresh off the

[00:05:20] boat. And

[00:05:22] immediately we get to my dad’s place in Washington.

[00:05:25] DC his house, and we’re excited. Like I said, my dad was my hero. He taught me how to read , he taught me how to ride my bike.

[00:05:33] And I really idolized him in a sense

[00:05:35] Paula: [00:05:35] that I think most kids do with their parents. And. So as soon as we got to the house, my dad went to put our suitcases away and his wife turned and looked at us and she said, , this is my house.

[00:05:46] And if you guys think you’re coming in here to take over and run this place, you have something else coming. I will put you

[00:05:53] Adessa: [00:05:53] and your father out. We, we were, it was like, she sucked the life out of the joy and excitement we

[00:05:59] Paula: [00:05:59] had for being there. And I think that sort

[00:06:02] Adessa: [00:06:02] of was the prelude to how our time

[00:06:05] Paula: [00:06:05] in the house was.

[00:06:07] It was filled with daily torment and torture, right? Not only mentally, physically, emotionally. We were happy children in Trinidad. We were poor, but we played soccer all day and had mangoes. We were free. It was a beautiful life. And here we are in America, the United States of America, where they tell you your dreams are realized here, to now experience our

[00:06:32] Adessa: [00:06:32] childhood ever. And it was so sad.

[00:06:36] I remember just crying a lot. Now, my brother and I,

[00:06:40]We were constantly overworked. So shortly thereafter, my stepmother her daughter and my stepmother is significantly older than my dad.

[00:06:50] And so her children were adults. And her adult daughter moved back in and she had three sons, three young sons and they just added to all of the

[00:06:59] problems you were experiencing.

[00:07:01] They would dirty the house. And then we would have to clean constantly for birthdays.

[00:07:07] And for holidays. They got really beautiful  gifts and toys, and we just got nothing or scraps and you get to see that right.

[00:07:15] And we just felt, I think, lower than a dog, we were just really down and I would try to encourage my brother all the time. As a Christian, I remember I grew up in the church and I held on to just a couple of scriptures and just praying and asking God, like, why is this happening? And the saddest thing was that we would,

[00:07:32] we were only able to call our mom once in a

[00:07:34] Paula: [00:07:34] blue and, we would just cry and it was heartbreaking for them and for us.

[00:07:40] And it was just so difficult. And she particularly hated me for some reason. So I just remember on one birth day

[00:07:48]Adessa: [00:07:48] For example,

[00:07:49] I. I was downstairs. I was by the refrigerator, just getting some water. I had a friend from high school, she’s going to take me to the gym and going to a gym to me was like, wow, that’s like a

[00:07:59] miracle.

[00:07:59] So I was so excited

[00:08:01] and she just came Downstairs  and she saw me and she just slapped me in my face. I couldn’t believe it.

[00:08:08] Paula: [00:08:08] Yeah. Your step mother.

[00:08:09]Adessa: [00:08:09] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:08:10] And it was just,

[00:08:11] that was the catalyst for it. Every single day, almost every single day. Her daughter would stump up the stairs.

[00:08:19] the woodenstairs    my brother and I, we shared a room,

[00:08:23] although there were

[00:08:24] lots of rooms in the house. People are like, why did you guys share a room? We were grateful. We didn’t care. But

[00:08:29]It was we kept each other comforted. And she

[00:08:32] would just stump up the stairs while we were in our room and we could hear her coming.

[00:08:37] So our hearts are just thumping and we would just be overcome with so much anxiety and stress because we’re like, Oh my gosh. She’s what she, what’s she going to do now?.

[00:08:46]Paula: [00:08:46] Now, you’re talking about your  stepsister.

[00:08:49] Adessa: [00:08:49] Yeah.

[00:08:50]Paula: [00:08:50] Okay. So she’d be coming up to the room. Where was your dad?

[00:08:54]Adessa: [00:08:54] Yeah, his room was next to our room.

[00:08:56] Paula: [00:08:56] Okay.

[00:08:58] And he would be hearing and all of this.

[00:09:00]Adessa: [00:09:00] So he’d be hearing at all of it. He usually would

[00:09:01] have his door open while he’s reading the Bible actually. And she would

[00:09:05] come up. And she stomping. So you could really hear her and, go, Oh my God. And I would tell my brother just don’t do anything.

[00:09:12] Just brace yourself. The other thing that I should mention this, that we didn’t have our papers. We didn’t even know what that meant at the time, but when our mom and people told us, and so we’re like, we have to endure this abuse because we need to get our papers so we can help our mom and our other siblings

[00:09:28] come up.

[00:09:30] And so they would say whenever we’ve talked to them in Trinidad, just try to hold on try to, hold on. and we were trying to hold on.

[00:09:37] And hold on we did.

[00:09:38]And she would come in and then she would kick the door open with her foot, and then she comes all the way in your face and just started bursting you out, screaming, spitting on you, just telling you that you’re nothing, you will never be anything saying bad things about my mom and she just horrible stuff.

[00:09:56] And my dad never rescued us. He never stopped it. And one day in particular, nobody was home. And I was one of the smartest people in my high school and I poured myself into school because I didn’t want to go home. So I would, I was the editor of the newspaper. I did everything I could, so I could stay late.

[00:10:15] And one of my teachers knew my situation, so she would stay late at school. So we would just stay late working. So

[00:10:21] I wouldn’t have to go home.

[00:10:24] And this one day I came home and it was , it was earlier and no one was home. And I went upstairs. I just sat at the edge of my bed. Just decompressing from the day, just basking in the glory of the

[00:10:35] silence.

[00:10:36] And then to

[00:10:37] Paula: [00:10:37] my, to my chagrin , I heard the stumps again, coming up the

[00:10:41] Adessa: [00:10:41] steps. Now there’s

[00:10:42] nobody home and I’m frightened. And she comes in, she kicks open the door and my hair is in a ponytail and a bun. And she grabs me by my hair and pushes me off the bed and then drags me out the door and kicks me down  the stairs,ok?.

[00:10:56] Paula: [00:10:56] I rolled down the steps and she ran down. She opened the front door and she pushed me out the door. Now this is in the middle of winter and I had no coat on. I had no shoes on. So I stayed out there for about two hours.

[00:11:11] Adessa: [00:11:11] Because I

[00:11:12] Paula: [00:11:12] didn’t know where any work to go. And I have no shoes on or coat on.

[00:11:16] I’m like, I don’t want to be walking on the streets. It wasn’t like Trinidad where it’s okay to, we had no shoes on, we’re

[00:11:22] Adessa: [00:11:22] running around. It’s a thing.

[00:11:25]Paula: [00:11:25] Yes

[00:11:26] Adessa: [00:11:26] And so I stayed there and my dad finally came home from work and I saw him coming up the steps. And I started saying, I said,

[00:11:33] I don’t know what happened.

[00:11:34] I came

[00:11:35] home. I was in my room and she came and she just pushed me down the stairs and kicked me up. And he said, “Adessa why are you guys making trouble for me?” I’ll never forget that. And

[00:11:44] Paula: [00:11:44] Say that again.

[00:11:45]Adessa: [00:11:45] Yeah, that’s what my dad said, Adessa, why are you guys making trouble for me? Yeah.

[00:11:52] Paula: [00:11:52] Wow. I can only just imagine.

[00:11:56]You’re the kid, this is your dad. You’ve always known your dad  back home in Trinidad as the strong, the father who took care of any problems. And now you all have you’re in a foreign land and all of this is happening in the house that he’s in and he’s not protecting you..

[00:12:13] Adessa: [00:12:13] Yeah.And he’s  right in the middle of it, he’s hearing it.

[00:12:19]Paula: [00:12:19] Oh my gosh

[00:12:20] Adessa: [00:12:20] And I would have never thought, like I said, when we were coming up, my mom was like, Oh, your dad loves you guys so much that lady’s probably gonna be so jealous. Cause he’s such a good

[00:12:28] dad. And it was, I couldn’t believe it to be in a new place where people are making fun of you because you have this heavy accent.

[00:12:40] You can’t really find your place where you feel like you belong. And then your one hero, the person that you love the most has in essence betrayed you, you start feeling just hopeless in a sense of worthlessness and shame. And I, we never experienced that before. And not to mention just.

[00:12:59] Being treated like less than a person. I remember when we first moved there, her daughter gave me a bag of her shoes that she wore before they were lightly used. They were a nice, I liked it. I was grateful for it. I’m super grateful. And when she got mad at us, for whatever reason, she just came and she took them off back, stuff like that.

[00:13:19]

[00:13:19] For example, clothes.  My stepmother wouldn’t say, okay, they are teenagers. Let’s take them to the mall and then grab some things, give them their budget or what have you? Nope, she would go buy our stuff and then we come home from school. It’ll be one or two outfits just on the bed there for us.

[00:13:34]So if you’d like to do, didn’t like it, if it fits you, okay. It’s what you have. And in the Caribbean, you wear uniform and know everybody’s in the same thing. It’s not a fashion show, but in America where we went to school, we wore regular clothes. And you know how vicious kids could be. So I just had nothing to wear.

[00:13:53] And so we would have to find whatever we could in like old dresser drawers and stuff. And it was just a very difficult time for us. Eventually after, I don’t know, maybe a year or so of just torture and abuse.  One day she came up my step sister again, and same thing, cursing us out, telling us we’ll never be anything.

[00:14:13] And, using lots of profanity. And then she said, you know what, why don’t you guys pack your, andget the outta here. And I’m telling you, , we had never been homeless before, but when she said that it was like a peace just washed over us because it’s you know what, we’re here holding on to dare life because we want to get our papers.

[00:14:38] And now you’re putting us out?  We want our papers, but we would. fare well on the streets then to be in this place. It’s so toxic. And so we got trash bag. Like I said, we didn’t have much, it could fit in half a trash bag. Our, we just started putting our things in and she went back to the basement at that point when we were putting our stuff in and then finally.

[00:15:03] My dad came in. Now, this is after this has been happening for so long, but he heard cause he’s been hearing, but he realized we were packing up and he came and he said, what are you guys doing? Put your stuff back, put your stuff back. And we did. And we went to bed, but in that instance I knew cause his wife worked nights as a nurse and I knew.

[00:15:24] Her daughter would, was probably already calling her and she knew what her daughter was doing and, and she said, look, we want them out. I think also what it was that it was just jealousy, they saw, I think they particularly hated me. I think that they saw my potential. I didn’t know it at the time, and they didn’t like that. And also for my step-mom that my. My brother and I were my dad’s children and she can give him that and that represented a love. And she felt in some way that was taken away from the love, that he had for her. Instead of saying, , these are your kids. I love you.

[00:16:00] I’m going to love on them. It can be a family, and  Paula, all this was happening while we were going to church every Sunday. And we were so miserable because we felt what hypocrisy and we didn’t really know. We didn’t have any outlet. We didn’t share our story because we thought we had to be good.

[00:16:17] Caribbean children. We were respectful. We were kind, we excelled in school,  all the good stuff, not back talking . We were trained to be respectful and we were really respectful. So we went problematic children. We excelled in school, but that still wasn’t enough.

[00:16:34] And actually that made it worse because why should you also be good at school? And you’re respectful and he loves you. You’re a problem.

[00:16:42] Paula: [00:16:42] My gosh. So I want to stop your here. And I haven’t said anything because I’ve just been wanting you to tell your story, but what’s going through my mind was all right.

[00:16:52] Where was the help in schoolat least? You didn’t have counselors  you said, a teacher knew what was going on, but nobody stepped in to say, we’ve noticed neglect, something must be wrong? That didn’t happen at school, obviously?.

[00:17:07] Adessa: [00:17:07] No. Nope. It didn’t. And the other thing with school is that she put me in the worst school because we could have gone where we lived.

[00:17:15] There was a really good school Wilson and said she put me in Roosevelt. And then she put my brother in the better school. She was just hoping that I don’t know whatever happens to me. And I did share my story, but again, I didn’t really know that I could be a little bit more vocal, but at that point, it’s the inner city with black and brown kids.

[00:17:35] Nobody cares about us. It’s just okay, this is happening at your house. Okay. At least there’s no drugs there. So it wasn’t really as colorful as a story as really should have been.

[00:17:46] Paula: [00:17:46] Okay. What about church? Nobody, or you didn’t feel comfortable talking in church?

[00:17:51] Adessa: [00:17:51] Yeah. I didn’t feel comfortable talking in church because it was, their church . We were foreign.

[00:17:55] We don’t know. It seems like nobody cared. It just seemed like a different place. It was, it didn’t seem as warm as it was in the Caribbean where, You’re not going to abuse kids. You love them. You care for them. It’s a family, or just want to laugh and have fun. It just felt different. And we felt afraid or alone.

[00:18:12] And I think the few adults we had in our lives, they convinced us that, , just be good. Kids. Don’t say anything. Don’t share anything and you get your papers. And so it was like almost a black, like a black mail.

[00:18:26] Paula: [00:18:26] Or, and, or maybe a way to the end. The means any means justify the end. You came here, you didn’t have papers, just.

[00:18:35] Stick with it. and when you get your papers, then things will, it would be worth it in the end,

[00:18:40] Adessa: [00:18:40] Holding it over our heads. And so that, so the next day after she comes in, she tells us like, pack your stuff. We’re packing. Our dad says, listen, what are you guys doing? He didn’t say it in front of her.

[00:18:51] When she went back down to the basement, he said, put your stuff back. What are you doing? So I knew it was just something that told me that was it They’re  kicking us out. And we went to bed that night and his wife would come home at night and sometimes she would tell him wake us up to go wash the dishes.

[00:19:10] Mind you everyday we were washing when we came home, we were cleaning because that’s our job. But because her grandkids knew, we were essentially  the house cleaners, they’d destroy everything because they knew we had to do it. So I would before bed, maybe eight or nine.

[00:19:24] I’d clean up cause my brother. wasn’t used to doing those sorts of things. And I was fine. He was my younger brother. I didn’t want him to do it. He was also sad.

[00:19:34] Paula: Oh, I can imagine. Oh my gosh.

[00:19:36] Adessa: Yeah. And so I just remember in particular one night we went to bed and she came home around midnight and I heard her saying to my dad, cause she, especially didn’t like me.

[00:19:47]Wake Adessa up and let her go down and wash  those dishes. And my dad said ” they have school and she had already washed,…” ‘ I dont care, wake her up. And he came to go wake my brother because he always said  he’s the boy, I don’t want to wake her up. She’s the girl. And I said, no, it’s okay.

[00:20:01] I’ll go down. So it was like that. He never stood up and did what was right as a father. And so long story short is the next day was Saturday, I believe. And he came to our room super early in the morning. And again, he wanted to go wake up my brother to tell him. And I said, I was already up cause something told me.

[00:20:20] And he said, I said, no, it’s okay. What is it, dad? And he said sheepishly these people don’t want you guys here anymore. Adessa, see if you guys can find somewhere to go. He gave me $50. Okay. And we had some cousins here, but who wants to take two kids? Nobody wants to take us. And so I went to stay with my best friend from high school that I just met.

[00:20:41] Like I was fresh off the boat. And so she was Dominican and lived with her mom and stepdad in a two bedroom apartment. So I stayed there with them and her mom and husband, they had three kids. And then, Gracie, my friend and her brother were two kids that she had from another relationship.

[00:20:59] So they already had five kids in a two bedroom apartment and now me would make another kid. Yeah. And so we were all sleeping in one bed. Okay.

[00:21:09] Paula: [00:21:09] What about your brother?

[00:21:11] Adessa: My brother ended up going to my

[00:21:12] cousin’s house.

[00:21:14] Yeah. But they didn’t really want him there. He was already falling apart. It just really hit him in a difficult and a different way.

[00:21:23]And it was a tragic end for my brother. My brother ultimately, got killed.

[00:21:29]Paula: [00:21:29] Oh my gosh.

[00:21:31]Adessa: [00:21:31] So while I’m staying there at my friend,  they asked my dad to contribute. Like I said, they’re not making a lot themselves and my dad refused to give them any money. And in fact, he complained to me and he says to me Adessa, these people are trying to use me for money.

[00:21:47] And I thought to myself, I didn’t say this to him, but these are your children. These quote, unquote, these people wouldn’t have to take care of your responsibility if you did what you were supposed to do as a man, as a Christian, as a father. And so eventually, I couldn’t stay there, they kicked me out.

[00:22:03]And

[00:22:03] Paula:  was it kicked out, okay, now it’s enough. You got to go.

[00:22:06] Adessa:  Yeah. They asked me to leave. Yeah. Yeah. They asked me to leave and I’m not mad at them. In fact, I need to say this, Gracie still like my best friend. I talked to her, I was in her wedding. I’m really close with her mom.

[00:22:20] And I didn’t know where to go. So I called my other friend who was a best friend to me at the time, because to me she was wealthy. She was driving a brand new car. None of the kids in my school, most of them had no cars, but this girl had a brand new car. And I said, ” Hey I need to come stay at your place.”

[00:22:35] Cause I have nowhere to go. And I thought she would be, of course I’m rich, but She said Adessa you can’t come stay at my house. Like you can’t. But she said, I knew this. I know. I think I could, I think you could stay at this girl’s house that I know. And I ended up staying at this other girl’s house that she knew, but she was also an adult and she had a boyfriend and I just felt so uncomfortable being there.

[00:22:56] Like something was just going to happen because I saw her boyfriend was looking at me and I was sleeping on the couch. And I was like, I can’t be here. I have to get out of here.

[00:23:05] Paula:  And what did you do?

[00:23:07]Adessa:  I went back to school and I just didn’t know what to do. And  I told some of my teachers and, they’re like, yeah.

[00:23:14] Okay, try it, try to see if you could get back to your dad’s or something, but that’s not an option. They wanted to get rid of me. And and us, quite frankly, so I was popular in my school. And so I ended up walking home with some of my friends. Just because I had nothing to do. I was like, okay, I’ll just going to walk with them.

[00:23:33] And I don’t know. I’ll see what I, and then I ended up at one of the girl’s house, her name’s Candice, and everyone ended up leaving, but I lingered because I have nowhere to go. And when Candace went to her room. Her mom said ,” Adessa, I know what has happened to you. I know that you don’t have anywhere to go.

[00:23:51] As a single mother of a daughter, you cannot be on the streets. You have to stay here”. That was the most love and kindness I had ever, that I ever experienced since coming to America from an absolute stranger who I’d never met before. And  I wasn’t close to her daughter. I was popular people know me because I did a lot of stuff.

[00:24:13] Like I said before. And her kindness, it just. I was speechless. I couldn’t see anything.

[00:24:23] Paula: That’s like an angel from above. Just, not someone you in the first place even considered. You were only in the house because there was no way to go that night.

[00:24:37] Adessa:  Her name was Angela and she treated me. So kind, I didn’t feel like, Oh, this is her daughter and I’m just some stepchild, but no, I was treated very well. And in fact, when I graduated from high school, she, I did want to, I did I was on stage talking and she was screaming and taking pictures of me and it was just.

[00:24:58] So kind. And I saw my dad coming in late while I’m delivering my speech. He didn’t even, he didn’t have balloons or I didn’t plan anything. I remember all of the other kids, their parents are there, they had flowers and, the traditional stuff that they do here in America, balloons and flowers.

[00:25:16]And my dad was just like, and he came by himself, in late. And so it was just, that’s how things went. And so for me, I didn’t know how to get into college because I had no papers. Schools would write me back universities, Hey, we can’t accept you. You need your social, you need some papers here.

[00:25:34] And I felt like I was a burden on Angela and I just didn’t want to be that way because Candace was going to college. And so eventually. I received a letter in the mail saying I had a full academic scholarship. Now I never applied to the school. Never even heard of the school. It was just God, like I’m telling you.

[00:25:56] And I don’t know if my teachers knew and they were sending her information saying, Hey, here this girl, but they never told me ’til this day. I don’t know how it happened, but I think that through all the difficulties that I’ve been through, I recognize that I can be who I am and couldn’t have bore all of this pain and this sorrow, if I didn’t really rely on God and it was difficult, I had some dark nights.

[00:26:24]But still. I kept holding onto hope and I didn’t want my loss of my brother and all of the sacrifices that my mother made to be in vain. I really wanted to show people that if you keep believing and you just keep putting one step in front of the other, eventually  morning comes. Night, the darkness,  doesn’t last forever.

[00:26:47] And ultimately I graduated from college and I went on to law school and to become an attorney. Yeah,

[00:26:56] Paula:  Such a powerful outcome. Gosh. And so after all of that, it showed you that God still had His hand upon you because when you talk about, what are the chances that  is it Candace  whose mom, Angela took you in- a girl that you never knew. That you’d never met. She took you into her home. She was a single mom, I assume.

[00:27:25] Adessa:  Yes.

[00:27:26] Paula:  And she made sure that you were treated well, you ate just as good as her daughter. , there was no difference. You said. And how she treated her daughter and, she treated you. And then when it came time to go into college, when you were graduating, she showed up as the mom.

[00:27:42] Adessa:  Yes.

[00:27:43]Paula:  And then. as God had, it a school wrote you and gave you a full scholarship. And now you’re an attorney. That’s nothing but God’s grace.

[00:27:56] Adessa: Absolutely. Because there was no way I would’ve been able to get an other than that. My dad and his wife, they weren’t gonna support me and they weren’t gonna get me my papers  they held it over our heads.

[00:28:07] And so for years I would beg them to get it. And finally, we were able to get our papers. And for a long time, my brother and I, we hated our dad – hated them. It was poisoning my life. At one point I wanted to kill myself. I remember drinking a lot of alcohol over and over.

[00:28:25]Because I wanted to end my life. I hated myself because I felt convinced that if my own dad could mistreat me and allow us to be treated like that, then I was worthless. Nobody would love me. And it took so many years for me to overcome all of that abuse that happened. And I think the worst part for me was that whenever I tried to talk to my dad about it, He made it seem like we were delusional.

[00:28:51] Like it never really happened. And that we needed to move on and that ” you need to move on” ? You can be in the past, God is a God of the future. Now you  have to move forward. And so it’s we just wanted to talk about it. Hey, what happened?

[00:29:04] Paula:  Yeah.

[00:29:04]Adessa:  What were you thinking?

[00:29:05] Not from a point of condemnation, but from a point of understanding, as a father, figure someone, we looked up to, how did you let this happen? And he’s still married to my stepmother to this day. But like I said, it was poisoning my life. I hated myself. And I just decided to make a change because I was like, you know what?

[00:29:30] This isn’t making sense. I can’t live my life this way. And it’s only God  I’m still alive because I remember getting into my car  many nights after I had drank and I was driving my car and I just wanted to crash my car and speed. And I don’t even know how I got back to my house, my apartment, and parked my car.

[00:29:50] Just, God. And I slowly started to just release my dad and his wife and my step-sister and forgive them. And when I was able to do that, Everything changed for me. Like I was a free person and that the abuse wasn’t continuing because every single day when I kept the unforgiveness, I was reliving it and I was so angry and I hated them.

[00:30:15] And the hate that I had for them was hurting me. It was destroying me and I decided to just stop.

[00:30:23]Paula:  You decided that you were going to walk in forgiveness. You decided that you weren’t going to hold . What we, I guess the world would say, justifiable  disdain and anger towards your dad and your step-mom, you decided that it was actually.

[00:30:39]More detrimental to you to do that than to just release it.

[00:30:44] Adessa: Yeah. Yeah. And I think it was a combination of things. I think the God, right? Because his message is about forgiveness over and over. I was just looking at myself in the mirror and I realized I don’t even know who this person is.

[00:30:58] Who are you? And I am a person who has a sunny disposition. Always  laughing, I’m bubbly and. All of that stuff. It changed me. And so I really wanted to get back to the type of person that I was, and I didn’t want what they did to me , to determine and define who I am. And I wanted to make my own way and be the person that I knew I could be.

[00:31:23] And so I decided to change.

[00:31:27] Paula:  And so God gave you the ability to overcome that. Oh my gosh, what a story? But also what’s a triumphant story in the end. Look at you today. And you’re, telling your story for a reason.  What would you tell someone who is probably experiencing the same thing or has gone through the same thing?

[00:31:47] Because looking at you today, no one would know that, but you, sharing, I know is going to help a lot of people,

[00:31:54] Adessa:  I would essentially say to people, especially in our society now we’re seeing where people are being pigeonholed or defined by the way they look or their accent or ethnicity or whatever.

[00:32:07] Life is literally what you make it. And you get to decide the type of life you want. It’s important to have a dream and have a vision. I always held onto my vision for myself and I wanted better. I didn’t know how it was going to be possible, but I knew I wanted it and I just kept praying and believing.

[00:32:27] And so whatever you want to achieve in life, You may look at your family’s history or your own history or background, and it may say, Hey, this is not possible for you. And people are always quick to tell us and limit us to tell us what we can do, how far we can go, but we get to decide and no one can decide for you.

[00:32:46]So if you want to have a big, bold, crazy life, Then go for it. Your skin color doesn’t limit you. Nothing limits you unless you want it to limit you. And for me in this day and age, I’ve decided that the sky is not even the limit for me, I’m going to go, I’m stepping up big.

[00:33:04] I’m stepping up bold because when you leave your country and you come to a foreign place, You didn’t leave that place to come live small. You left it because you wanted a dream. Your family had dreams for you. And it’s easy to get to the new place and get lost in the shuffle but you’ve  got to hold on to that dream and make big steps, be bold, be daring, and it will come true for you.

[00:33:30] Paula:  I love that message. I love that message because as you said, them as immigrants, sometimes we get here and we get so engrossed with, trying to adapt to a new environment that we forget who we were. Sometimes forget. The purpose, God has a purpose, but each one of us it’s unique. So being here, whether it’s in,  your Homeland or being here in America, there’s a purpose for you being here.

[00:33:55] And I’m so glad that you found your purpose because you’re been successful successful in the sense that you were able to get high school and college education. You’re now an attorney, but an attorney with a difference, you have a message. Yeah, you’ve got a message of hope, a message of forgiveness, a message of saying to people there’s a plan and a purpose for your life, even as an immigrant, even out of your own country.

[00:34:20] And so live it to the fullest.

[00:34:22]Adessa: Absolutely. And right now, as a, I have my wellness company and I’m really helping people to. Believe better is possible and helping people to design their life. As a Caribbean person. I had no idea. I thought you just wake up and you just figure it out.

[00:34:38] But no, there’s an intentionality that comes with life. So when you get clear about who you are, what you want and where you’re going, and you create a blueprint, I’m telling you, it’s amazing things happen out of that instead of just living based on reaction when we are proactive. We’re really able to live our lives by design.

[00:34:57] And it’s just been such a pleasure, getting to walk in the fullness of my calling and getting to help people really create a meaningful life and not having to just live

[00:35:07] out of the, leftover us and just living, just surviving, but to thrive in your life, no matter the season, even in this pandemic season, right?

[00:35:17] You can still live your life to the fullest. Live your life full of color and rich.

[00:35:24] Paula: I love that. I love that. Live your life full of color and rich, I say amen to that. Amen. There’s nothing else I got to say. Can I ask you to say, I think set it all. You’ll set it all at DESA. This has been paradoxically, a beautiful story.

[00:35:49] It’s been a story of. Triumph a story of excelling in spite of the odds. And I think the most powerful thing for me and probably, I don’t know if the most powerful for you, but what struck me is that in spite of it all, you’re walking in a spirit of forgiveness and that has given you freedom to be who you are.

[00:36:13] You said you started a wellness company.  What’s the name of that company? Let’s put it out there.

[00:36:18] Oh yeah. The Barker collective. I love it. And to wrap it up, where can we find you online? Because The Barker collective is one way,

[00:36:27]Adessa: I  was just so carried away telling my story and yeah, you can find out about me by going to my website – www.adesabarker.com. And that’s a, as in Apple, D as in dog, E as in egg, S as in Sam, S as in Sam, a as in Apple, barker.com, I’m also on LinkedIn and, some of the socials which Probably  getting off of to be quite honest, but but you could definitely find me on my website and on LinkedIn.

[00:36:54] Paula:  Thank  you. Thank you Adessa for sharing your story. It’s a powerful story.

[00:37:01] Adessa:  Thank  you so much for having me. It’s just been such a pleasure. And, just to share your story with  someone, because as being a Caribbean and African, how we’re taught to just sweep everything under the rug. So stepping out and sharing, you’re like, Oh my  gosh, I don’t know.

[00:37:19] Paula: know, I know. I know. I know that this is going to impact some lives and  that’s what matters. The lives that are going to be touched by this. I know it’s not easy for you. Thank you. And for my listeners, if you have just heard Adessa’s story and you want to know more about similar stories like that, please head over to Apple podcasts. Google podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts and click subscribe. If you’re an immigrant woman from Nigeria, from Ghana, the Caribbean, or these days, I’m finding out other people from Africa.

[00:38:14] So from other African countries, and have found these stories interesting or uplifting. Please let us know in your reviews. And if you would like to be a guest on my show, chatting with the experts, let’s chat. Thank you again, Adessa

[00:38:31] This has been a powerful time yet something that’s touched my heart. Hearing you and seeing you means that there’s a purpose for your life and you’re living it .