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In My Basement: from Secrets to Salvation

by Rev. E. Thelma Kaushik JD

249 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #02-0266; ISBN 1-55369-453-8; US$19.96, C$22.95, EUR16.40, £11.48

In My Basement: from Secrets to Salvation is a dynamic story about a black woman who battles her way out of childhood abuse, marital abuse and single motherhood towards a college degree, law school degree, the ministry and national recognition for selfless work with the homeless, battered women, spousal abuse, and the drug-addicted community.

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about the book      from the author      excerpts      catalogue info

About the Book In My Basement: from Secrets to Salvation is a book chronicling the life of a young black woman whose life began as the unwanted twin of an abusive mother. Abused physically, mentally and emotionally by those who nature indicates should nurture and protect her, she becomes pregnant at 14 as the result of a rape. Married at 15, she is a divorced mother of four by the tender age of 21. Her early life is a series of missteps and miscalculations. Ravaged by poverty and mental illness she meets her spiritual guide and protector on the stairs to the basement of her parents' home. With the strength and insight provided periodically through her life by her new found guardian, she gains confidence, knowledge and wisdom in the way of spiritual giving and reward. From this tortured childhood and young adulthood, she achieves success not expected by those who knew her from the beginning. With four young children in tow, she pulls herself with their assistance and incredible resilience to a college degree, law school degree and national recognition as an advocate and rescuer of the homeless. This is the story of a woman who is not afraid to say that the world belongs to those who take control of their own future and create their own opportunities. A victim of incredible abuse, this woman is not willing to accept the label and lifestyle of a victim. Victims will remain victims as long as they define themselves that way. This book takes that excuse away from those who would use their life experiences to give their lives over to others. This author knows from experience that victimization is a path to misery, helplessness and poverty in the physical, emotional and spiritual sense. She has discovered through the difficult journey on which she takes you that the power of forgiveness, most importantly the forgiveness of self, is the key to success and our only chance at happiness. Whether you agree with her beliefs, her methods or even question the validity of her conclusions, this is a woman whose life had been an epic journey and whose powerful personality is not to be forgotten. In My Basement will touch your heart, shock your spirit and console your soul.

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From the Author Please let me introduce myself. My name is Rev. Eloise Thelma Kaushik JD, an ordained minister, writer, singer, inspirational speaker and, maybe most importantly, survivor. But who I am is much less important than the message which I wish to bring to you. This is just a brief introduction to who I am and what I wish to do. I was born in East St. Louis, Illinois. My father, a black man, was a meat-cutter and my mother, part black and part Cherokee Indian, was a homemaker. Although my family was not poor, my childhood was one of turmoil, abuse and confusion. I was raped at the age of fourteen and had a child as a result. Because of my mother's physical abuse, I was forced to marry at the age of fifteen, entering into spousal abuse, and three more children followed in as many years. By the age of eighteen I had four children. At the age of nineteen I had a nervous breakdown. By the age of twenty-one I was divorced and the mother of four. With no education, support from home or any idea as to how to deal with my life and responsibilities as a single mother of four, I was forced to proceed on a venture with no map or apparent guide. In the 1970s, there was no social aid available for mentally-ill mothers, and I was forced to travel from state to state in order to avoid social services taking my children away from me. This book chronicles that journey, the lessons learned and the strengths gained while listening to the voice in In My Basement. My purpose in writing this book is to let you now that no matter what challenges your life, there is hope and salvation. Not just the kind that you must wait to die for, but the kind that integrates God in your present day life to give you comfort and strength and the peace that only your life with God can bring. No matter how frightening or abusive a life might be, I can relate to it and help find the path away from it to strength, courage and fulfillment. Many homeless men, women and children have benefitted from my experiences. I have worked with battered women and addicts of all kinds. I recognized that these are not only God's children, but our brothers and sisters. It is through love, concern and caring for them that we truly walk with God and receive all of the blessings He has to offer us. This is my message. This is my prayer. And with your help, it will be our destiny.

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Excerpts

from Chapter One - My Beginning

    We started as a pair, my twin and I. He was the lucky one because he got to go home with Mama after our delivery. As for myself, I was not so lucky. The nine month stay in an incubator caused the difference between my relationship with my mama and her relationship with my siblings. This difference hurt me so badly that it felt like I was climbing an endless mountain. It seemed to me that if I could have gone to the top of the mountain and looked as far as I could see, the only thing I would have seen would have been an endless series of these mountains of hurt and despair. My beginning lacked all positive elements which would have made my life in the following years much easier.
    Before my true awakening I lessened my pain by blaming extenuating circumstances. My ideas of the relationship between a mother and child were always based on the what society and the Bible indicate that relationship should be. My relationship with my mama did not meet this model. I made every attempt to overcome my fear that my mama was not really my biological mother. As I grew older my fears were confirmed by words that would always ring in my ear until my true awakening. One day my mama said to me in anger that I was not her child. My mountains of despair became even more terrifying. There was so much pain in the difference between the relationship that I believed I should have and the one I experienced. But today I am OK with it. I mean truly OK with it. Some of us have beginnings which are positive and others which are negative, fate chooses our beginnings.
    There were a few circumstances which disabled my relationship with my mama from birth. It is said that a mother and child bond during pregnancy and the first year of infancy. I was told that my mama was very ill during her pregnancy with us. She had no idea she was pregnant with twins. After my brother was born, here I came. I was introduced as the one pound miracle baby, but my twin was truly the lucky one. He went home with mama while I stayed in the incubator for nine months. What a way to begin life. But thank God I was alive. My stay in the hospital broke the mother-child bond with my mama. She favored my siblings while my daddy had to love me for the both of them.
    My daddy, a brown skinned African American, was a meat cutter for Swift & Co. until he retired at the age of sicty-five. My mama, a full blooded light skinned Cherokee Indian, was a homemaker. My daddy and mama were the parents of five children together: two girls, June and myself and three boys, Jerry, Junior (my twin) and Tommy, our baby brother. My mama had two children by previous marriages, Gwen and Michael. Gwen would become an important member of my family. Michael would die at an early age with little impact on our family. My daddy had one child, Carol, by a previous marriage. Carol's mother would not let her see us and she remained distant from our family circle. Daddy didn't make a difference between his children and mother's children when they came to visit. He loved them like his own. Little old me, I was his baby girl.
    At a very young age I realized that there was something different about me. The difference was that desolate mountain of painful words and beatings from my mama. They became the "Blue Print of My Life." Her lack of love for me initiated profound incapacitating changes in my life. For many years her blue print controlled my life and my attitudes.
    As described in this book, the blue print of my life was designed and drawn and the script of my life was written by the one who I unconditionally loved from as early an age as I can remember. Then God stepped in and helped me to Let Go and Let God. Or should I say until the pain became so unbearable that I had no choice but to turn my soul to God and let Him direct my life.

from Chapter Four - My First Experience With My Basement

In My Basement

In My Basement, There is someone for me. I know he is there
To set me free. In My Basement he spoke to me, He said don't look
Because you are not free. In My Basement, My Steps are steep
Don't turn, what will you see? One day I will know, all the days, the warmth and the cold.
In My Basement at the end you will see
And only then will you be free.

    

    It was before daybreak one morning when I was six years old that my sister, brother and I were asleep. I will never forget waking up to the sound of the rawhide belt as it met the flesh of my back. I was lying in bed and my mama was swinging the belt. The sound and speed of the licj sounded like the blowing of a bad wind as I was trying to get away from it. That belt was faster than I could have ever been. There was no doubt in my mind the belt had my name and the shape of my back on it. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh was the sound of the belt. "Mama what's wrong?" Shhhhhhhhhhh. She kept beating me. Moving as quick as the belt, everyone except me jumed out of the bed leaving me tangled up in the belt. As I said, the belt had my name and instructions on it. I was trying to protect myself by grabbing the belt. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh was the sound I repeatedly heard. "Screaming, Mama what have I done!" Shhhhhhhhhh then the harsh words and name calling!! Shut up you filthy child, I am going to kill you. All I could see was my flesh all over the bed. "Kill me for what?" Shut up she said. Asking questions were useless. I laid their and took the licks like I had always done but this time I didn't think I was going to make it. After she got through beating me she told me to get up and cook. Getting out of bed in so much pain as I staggered into the kitchen. My entire body felt like it was burning with a fiery knife stabbing me in my back.
    Talking to myself in the kitchen, I made up in my mind that as soon as my bruises healed, I was running away. Why doesn't she ever beat my brothers or my sister I asked myself? Each time she beat me I was always sure that was my last day in this world. Later in my years, I would fall asleep when my mama beat me, and wish and pray that the next minute would never come. More or less in a daze I learned how to lose myself in the moment by going within, tuning out the licks, pretending I was fighting back and winning. There were times when I didn't want to come back to myself but I had to. There was this one particular night after she beat me I had a dream after I fell asleep. In thi dream it was dark in the basement of my parents' house. I was looking for some clothes and food to take with me when I ran away. Always afraid to be in that basement because I felt someone's presence I found myself always wondering without lights in that dark basement. Someone was always with me but who?

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Catalogue Information

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