(gentle music) - Good evening.

Home for me has been a journey to healing.

As I heal, I find home.

My journey of healing began long before my birth, shaped by fragments of broken love, pieces of my parents, their parents, and generations before them, haphazardly combined into a chaotic mosaic of who I am and who I ought to be.

Notice that I said who I ought to be, defined by cultural expectations based on past, present, and future iterations of me, who I am supposed to be juxtaposed with who I am.

And according to these definitions, I ought to be a monster.

Devastating loss, dreams deferred, and poverty had broken my mom.

And as a result, she loved her kids the best way she knew how: broken.

Her brokenness clouded her senses, and she was unable to discern good from evil.

Her unspoken desire to live up to a culturally accepted definition of family made our path to monstrous easy.

The roles of abuser and victim came naturally to a broken family.

So in my father's absence, she welcomed darkness into our home.

Disguised as a friend of the family, he assumed several roles: father figure, provider, lover, and abuser.

From the outside, we appeared to be an all-American family, struggling to make ends meet and pretending that everything was okay.

And besides, no one needed to know our truth.

He wasn't our daddy and he wasn't her husband.

But by the time I was five, evil had infiltrated our quest for normal.

Physical, mental, verbal abuse became our new normal.

And for me, a survival mentality replaced my innocence and my childish behaviors awkwardly became mature.

And I saw my ability to hope and dream rapidly fade away.

And after years of this new normal, I wondered, would I repeat the cycle of brokenness, or would I have the courage to be me, find home?

A series of random events changed the trajectory of my life.

It was the summer of 1978.

My brothers and I looked forward to our Saturday-afternoon escapes from our new normal, you know, adults fighting, children hiding, and you-know-who teaching me how to be a lady.

We went to go run errands and on our weekly outings to pay bills and buy groceries, it excited us like a trip to Disney.

And on this particular Saturday, it was just like any other Saturday, a fake trip to Disney, until the radio played a song that changed my life mentally, but not physically.

So as we rode down Airline Boulevard in P-Town towards the John open air market, the bright sun was trying to mask the sorrow that we felt deep within our souls.

And as the sun glisten off our face, i watched my mother concentrating on the road.

And her sunglasses, they blocked out the sun, but they barely blocked the bruises and the black eye.

And although her face was the face of a warrior and she pretended that everything was okay, her posture and her eyes betrayed her.

They revealed her truth, our truth: brokenness.

And so as I watched my mom, I heard DJ Bobby J say, "You are listening to WRAP.

And this is the hit song of the summer.

Gloria Gaynor, with 'I Will Survive.'"

(audience member cheers) My mom whispered, "I love this song."

And we all yelled, "Turn it up, turn it up!"

And as she turned up the song, we started singing like we were auditioning for the neighborhood talent show.

♪ First, I was afraid ♪ ♪ I was petrified ♪ ♪ Kept thinking I couldn't never live ♪ ♪ Without you by my side ♪ ♪ And I grew strong, I learned how to get along ♪ ♪ You think I'd crumble ♪ ♪ You'd think I lay down and die ♪ ♪ Oh, no, not I, I will survive ♪ And you know, of course I was loud and off key, but it was okay because our passionate rendition did not match Gloria's.

Hers was a cry of victory.

Ours was a lament.

And as the song died out, I was like in a trance.

And I'm watching all of the familiar scenery, you know, Louie E. Askew State Farm Agency, the big white farmhouse on this side, and Moseberth's Chicken, you know, with the big rooster on the top.

And I'm sitting there and I'm in a trance as we are driving along towards the Giant and the smell of chicken awakened my physical hunger.

And so I kind of snapped back into reality.

And so I sat up and I'm trying to look in the mirror.

And I saw that I was a mess.

My hair was uncombed, my eyes was running, my skin was ashy, my legs and arms were littered with sores and pus filled.

Some had crust and scabs.

And I really looked the way that I felt.

The song, the scenery, and my reflection stirred a different hunger in my fragile soul.

A deep sense of sadness filled my body as I mourned all that was lost.

Think about it.

A freedom song reminded me of my hopeless situation.

And I wondered, "Would this be my destiny?"

That's when I heard it.

It was a quiet voice speaking loudly in my soul.

And it said, "You're not going through this for nothing."

And I thought, "Whoa, wait a minute.

Who said that?

I know my brothers wouldn't say that."

And, you know, "Who said this?"

And then I remembered my Aunt Sis, she believed in God, and I thought, "Had her God finally remembered me?"

And although I didn't understand everything that was happening, that voice restored my hope.

I would survive.

And so you think about it, survival is a good thing, right?

But everything comes with a cost.

And the cost of survival was years of me dealing with the collateral damage, you know, feeling insignificant, abandonment, immorality, deception, secrecy, and, of course, my favorite, low self-esteem.

My life spiraled out of control as I began to violate myself, justify my actions and welcome predators.

I was a willing victim until another random event happened.

It was winter, 1985, we lived in Douglas Park.

You know, it was a once very prestigious African American community during World War II, but now it had barely resembled what it once was.

The old bricks and strong, you know, duplex represented our lives perfectly, you know, strong on the outside, but broken down on the inside.

So I was 17 years old.

I remembered I was 17 years old.

And at that time, my shame and pain masqueraded itself as a promiscuous, but smart teenage mother.

And I was like my mom.

I wore a brave face to hide my pain, shame, and fears.

You know, I laughed to cover pain.

I violated myself and allow others to violate me, just to conceal the shame, you know, act like it's normal.

And I lived in fear of being exposed.

And so our five-room house, it was better than being homeless.

We had been homeless, it was better than that, but it was a little, didn't have privacy for a family of four at that time, you know?

And I shared a room with my 13-year-old brother and my infant son.

But it was okay because he's deaf.

He was at the residential school most of the time.

So it was no way in the world that he could understand that I had a secret.

And then my mom, you know, she was busy trying to recover from six months of being in prison and, you know, depression, and, you know, had just consumed her.

And she was so busy trying to survive.

She never thought that I had a secret either.

And, you know, all that time I was so naive.

But anyway, that day I wrapped the towel around my swollen, wet belly and headed to the privacy of my mom's room.

So, you know, I look out the bathroom door and I see my brother, he's tall and he's muscular.

He's laying on this twin bed that we shared, and he's playing with my son.

And then I look over here and my mom is sitting in the living room.

The radio's, I mean the TV's blaring, and she's doodling her name, my dad's name, everybody's name, the Serenity Prayer.

And she's caught in her own trance.

But then I realized that she looked a lot like the bed.

Her burden had gotten so heavy that she struggled to maintain her warrior face.

But anyway, everything looked clear, right?

So I took three steps.

One, two, three, I'm in my mom's room.

And I dropped the towel.

And as I dropped the towel, my mom walked in the room.

And I tried to look normal, you know, "Okay, I'm..." But I could feel her, her eyes was piercing my body, scanning me up and down.

And I tried not to make eye contact, but she knew.

You know, she was depressed, she wasn't blind or stupid.

And then our eyes locked.

And she said, "What are you, a whore?"

And at that moment, my survival story, you know, it's going through my head, you know, I'm thinking about my pain, my shame, my past, and everything that I've been through.

How could she insinuate that I was a whore?

Was that what she really thought?

Yeah, it was.

But that was not who I am.

"No, no, no, no, mom, I'm, I'm not a whore."

But she kept talking and her rantin' and she kept going on and on and on.

And then suddenly I said, "I'm a survivor.

I am not a whore."

And at that moment, I have finally spoke my truth.

Yes, I'd had an abortion at 13 because of abuse.

I'd had a son at 16 and I was pregnant with another son less than a year later.

But I was not what she called me.

I was like her and the generations before her.

I was a survivor of a traumatic, abusive childhood.

And I was offered as a scapegoat.

And I had finally escaped.

So no more hiding for me.

Admitting my truth solidified my status as a wildflower.

I would not be just a survivor or a monster.

I am a wildflower.

I bloom in and out of season.

Thank you.

(audience applauding) (gentle music)