Copyright © 2013, 2014 by Mattia M. Smith.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2013918481

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-4931-1060-5

   Softcover   978-1-4931-1059-9

   eBook   978-1-4931-1058-2

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without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 01/14/2016

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Contents

Autobiography

Summary

Acknowledgements

Chapter One

What Is The Reason

The Beginning Of Life

Growing Up At Home

James The Practical Joker

Chapter Two

My School Years

About My Mother

My High School Year

About My Father

Chapter Three

A Day Of Doom

After My Mother’s Death

Moving Away

My Father’s Return

Chapter Four

Life After My Father’s Death

The Missing Toe?

Recognizing Diabetes

My First Job

The Love Of My Life

Moving Out

My High School Graduation Day

Chapter Five

After High School

Meeting The Family

Delores Last Moments

Tribute To Delores

Chapter Six

Life After Delores Death

The Separation

The Hidden Affair

The Tragic Accident

Chapter Seven

(Mothers Against Drunk Driving)

Life After Todd Death

Moving To Florida

Lord Why Has Thou Forsaken Me

Chapter Eight

The Second Arrest

Strange Behavior

Never Be Hungry Or Homeless

Life After Michael’s Death

Chapter Nine

Job Corps In Kentucky

The Third Arrest

Going Home

Lost At The Airport

Chapter Ten

Living With Moral Support

The Third Arrest

The 4Th Arrest

Not Again, The 5Th Arrest?

Chapter Eleven

A Long Way From Home

Back To Florida

Hard Time

Auditory Hallucinations In Schizophrenia

Chapter Twelve

Hard Time (7Th Arrest Continued)

And You Guessed It

The Second Tragic Accident

Prayer Of Faith

Chapter Thirteen

The Second Tragic Accident Part Two

Was I Marked?

The Knock On The Door

The Set Up

Chapter Fourteen

Stroke Of Bad Luck The 9Th Arrest

The Thief Appears

All Hell Breaks Loose

File The Report

Chapter Fifteen

The Arrest

Let’s Save Express Shell Llc

Charges Dropped, What!

Chapter Sixteen

Watch Out For The Con Man/Woman

I Conned The Con Artist

Mental Health Awareness Issues

Abuse A World Wide Epidemic

Being Loved

Conclusions

Release Of Liability

In Dedication to my Son

TORRENCE

For All That You Have Suffered

Autobiography

My name is Mattie Smith. I was born to the union of AJ Smith and Lillie Belle McGaughy on November 7th in the era of the sixties. I came from a fairly large family. I also have five brothers and five sisters.

My parents were farmers in the rural area of Mississippi. We were a poor family and not much money ran through our household. My father was a farmer. And in his spare time he use to freelance and take odd jobs to help support the well being of such large family back then. He took odd jobs such as fixing on peoples cars, or doing their yard work to fill in for the extra income between jobs outside of the work he got paid for in farming on the Russell plantations. So we mostly survived on home grown meats and vegetables and fruits.

I will start out by telling you a bit about myself so that we can get a little bit better acquainted. I am an outgoing person. I have a very pleasant personality. And I consider myself to be honest and open minded. I love to laugh and I love to make people laugh. I have a strong and combative nature, I am ambitious, I have a good sense of humor, and a desire to conquest and overcome negative obstacles.

I’ve been told that I have good intuition and the ability to read others, their motivations and their intentions, their strength and their weakness. But apparently I don’t always use those qualities when it comes to the matters of the heart.

Which brings me to sharing this part of my life with you. Now you might say. Wow Mattie’s life story, so what, everybody has a life story.

Well, my life story is one of inspirational matter, and I’ve been told by many other that I need to share it with the world. So in doing so, I hope to inspire you into believing in yourself no matter what life brings your way. Just as I have to do at this very moment in my life.

Right now at this very moment in my life I have hit what is known as Rock Bottom. I’ve lost everything I had, or you can say, I’ve lost everything my family had, which was not very much. But I worked very hard for what I did have.

Alright, I know your wondering or saying, Yeah, same old story, she either was on drugs or on the streets using drugs, or possibly a gambler of some sort.. But no, not the contrary its just the exact opposite. I never used drugs, I do not gamble, and I never worked in or on the streets.

I’m a single mother, a widow for the past twenty one years. You see it could happen to you what happened to me. I would like to share my life story with you, in hopes that what happened to me will not happen to you.

Summary

What am I suppose to do with my life now. I thought. I really feel so hurt lost and I am depressed. I feel like my whole life was just snatched right from under me so quickly as soon as it began. I keep thinking to myself. What kind of a person would or could do such a tremendous horrible act of indecency towards a person that suffers a mental disorder, or for that fact, what kind of a person would or could do such a horrible immoral act to anyone."

Why? Was all I could ask myself. I have so many emotions going thru me right now. I feel right now that I don’t know if it is easier to live or die. Today again I feel like I just want to close my eyes to sleep and never wake up again.

But each day I still awake to the same hurtful pain in my heart and the same question is. Why? Then I began to question God. I thought to myself. God, I know you’re there. Because you keep waking me up each and everyday, apparently there is still work you have for me to do. But what is it? I wondered. And why would GOD allow this to happen to me? Why is it that God allows and let evil people get away with hurting innocent good by the heart people? I did not do anything to deserve this ill fate to be bestowed upon myself and my family. Oh God, why has thou forsaken me!

I’ve been told by many people that my life is a testimony, and that I should write a book. Until now, I’d never given it serious thought, until this situation happened to me in my life. And now me writing this book is great therapy for me. It became an escape and a way that allowed me to be able to mentally deal with this terrible tragedy that I had allowed to happen to me in my life. As I began to write this book, I began to see clearly my own mistakes that I’d made. I began to realize that it was not GOD that allowed this terrible act of indecency to happen to me. But it was me that had opened the path for this terrible kind of tragedy to occur in my life. I no longer wanted to blame God for my current situation. I now only wanted God to help me to come out of my current situation, and to help me to restore my life. I believed in God, that he gave me and my family a gift, and I believe that when God gives a gift he makes no mistakes.

Now here I am writing this book, I don’t know what God has in store for me in the near future, but I do know that my desire while writing this book will be to share this kind of dramatic experience with everyone about my life, and in doing so. I pray that I can help someone else.

Right now if you are experiencing or is going thru some tragic situation. Or if you are feeling hopeless, loss and confused, broken heart or betrayed by someone you loved. I want you to know that you are not alone. And thank you for joining me on this wonderful long journey thru the roads of my life.

Acknowledgements

This is the part where I’m suppose to talk about all the great people that encouraged me to write this book. Truth is I really wish that I did have someone I could say that about. But I do not really. Frankly the first book I wrote was stolen by someone that I thought cared about me, however; what I’m about to share with you is so intense and unbelievable, that it was so important that I share this with you that I took the time to rewrite this book. Now this rewrite book is my first published book. I would like to give thanks to GOD," our Father in heaven for keeping me with the strength and encouragement to keep pressing forward thru this very difficult time in my life. And I would like to also give thanks to a wonderful woman named Melissa Burger, for taking me in her home when I was just a stranger in her house, homeless from this exciting story that I’m about to share with you. Oh yes! And also Grace Vasquez at (Xlibris publishing) for her patience and her belief in me!!! Thanks Grace and Melissa we did it!.

Chapter One

What Is The Reason

Bang! I suddenly awoke to a loud horrendous noise in my ears. As I became more than consciously aware and awake, I realized that the rain was falling against my patio window in a very heavy down pour, and that the loud bang! Was the noise of the thunder and lighting of the storm. I thought as I awake to the heartache, pain, and loneliness. How did I get to this point in my life. Where I’d rather see night time than day time.

I should be in a joyous occasion right now. But instead my days are filled with just the heartache and despair of trusting the wrong person in my life.

Today is Sunday November 18th, 2012. I dragged myself out of bed wondering. Now What I thought. I’d never ever been to a point in my life, or ever thought that I be at a point in my that this sort of thing would happen to me. That this sort of thing always happen to the other person. But, no not to me!

To my readers. I’d like to say that the story that I’m about to share with you, will intrigue you, excite you, bewilder you, and possibly even make you laugh sometimes, and maybe even make you cry sometimes. But it is all true.

However some names have been changed to protect the innocence of others. It all started July 13th 2012. It was a beautiful sunny day in Clermont Florida, my spirits were high and I felt happy. I finally felt like life had given me a break. A break to finally be able to enjoy the life I so rightfully deserved.

The Beginning Of Life

Do you remember when you first recognized yourself? Or as some may say. Do you remember the first onset of your memory? Well for me, it was the day I saw my reflection in my parents floor model TV.

I peered down at what seemed to be a long fall, and I felt as if I was going down. I felt scared and alone, as if no one was there to protect me. As I looked up, I saw this figure looking back at me, then I heard a voice say. Mattie, come on, come on, come to me, you can do it. I now realize that was the day I took my first steps to walking this path of life, and the figure staring back at me was myself. It was my reflection in my parents floor model TV that I now remember.

And I now know that it was my brother AJ, that was etching me to come on, he was encouraging me to do it, that I could take my first steps to walk.

I was eight months old starting to walk and now I also realized that I was eight months old when I realized my life, and it appeared to me in my parents floor model TV at the ripe old age of eight months. And that the feeling I had as a fear of falling was when my brother stood me up alone to walk.

Growing Up At Home

When I was growing up at home, we lived in a house on a reservation that had three bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen. There was no bathroom in our house. No Sir re! Are you kidding me! We had to go outside to what we all referred to as (The Out House), to do our business. And boy let me tell you. That place smelled terrific! And the word Febreze had not been invented yet! Realistically, that place stink of whatever we ate, peewwh!. So, to avoid late night trips to the outside, we were not allowed to have no drinks or anything to eat after 7pm.

Growing up in our household there were many fun times, and although we were a very poor family. I had some of the best times of my life.

But there were also some very scary unhappy times that frightened us. You see my father was extremely jealous and the insecure type about my mother.

I will tell you a bit about my father. My father was an excellent provider for his family, but he was also verbally and physically abusive when it came to my mother. These episodes would normally take place over the weekends, and this would be due to the very excessive amounts of alcohol he would consume at these times when he would have had to much to drink.

We lived in a rural town outside of Clarksdale Mississippi, a town known as Jonestown. This town was so small that you could literally walk from one end to the other in fifteen minutes. Do you remember the western drama T.V. Series called Gun Smoke it starred with James Arness as Matt Dillon Well, I think that series was filmed in that town. I do mean this little town looked just like that Dodge City.

On weekends we would go into the town to hangout with some friends and family. This was a time of social gatherings amongst the elders and working people of the town when everyone got together to talk about their work week past, or their week to look forward to. In this little town there was a lot going on, although at first glance it wouldn’t appear that way. As younger people here in town we would play games, buy lots of sweets and snacks that we were normally not allowed to eat throughout the past week. Ironically thou everyone that came into town on the weekend would be well dressed, especially the elders, and the attire that they wore was fit to impress. There would be live music, dancing, shopping, dining, some people would be doing their weekly grocery shopping, all this activity happening at once.

There were some families that lived in the town area of the plantation. Then there were other families that lived on the plantations. Most families that lived in the town area were what we call Well to Do. Either they were Doctors, Attorneys, or Business Owners. While the families that lived on the plantations were Farm Attendants, Cotton or Fruit pickers.

The girls that grew up in these areas were always encouraged to date a boy from the town, when they became of dating age, because it was taught that these boys were always considered to be from more prominent families, and of course that led to a more secure type of future for the girls. Which brings me to tell you about Paul.

Paul Jerome Brown is what his name was. Paul’s family lived in the town area of Jonestown, and his family were a Business Owner. So this made Paul among other boys that lived in that area to be a great catch. But ironically, Paul had the biggest crush on me. And why, well I couldn’t tell you. I never knew what he saw in me. I mean I was a very small girl compared to the other girls my age, and I did not live in the town area either. I lived in the country area, so I thought to myself. Surely he could find someone else that was much prettier than me. I would always feel inadequate or inferior to the others girls my age. For one thing. I did not have breast, I was flat as a pancake at twelve and thirteen years of age, and to make things worst in my mind, I was short and very bony. I was thin as a rail as they would say. I remember I use to put tissue or cotton inside a bra that I begged my mom to buy for me just so that I could look full like the other girls at school. That is until one day in our home economics class.

I remember my home economics teacher named, Mrs. Lewis. She was a thin lady, kinda tall and lanky, and she spoke with proper words. One day in our home economics class, we were assigned to make a blouse. Therefore; we had to take measurements of our chest and breast area. Oh my, I would never forget that day. It must have been one of the most embarrassing days of my life. I already felt nervous when Mrs. Lewis said. Alright, can I have everyone’s attention please? Today we will be taking our measurements as our assignment. We will be getting in a couple. So go ahead and choose your partners."

Right then, I became very to tense and nervous, because I knew that I did not have real breasts, so I thought. What if my partner realized that my breast were not real and that they were just some cotton and tissue there. I just wanted to look like the rest of the girls at school, so that I would not be getting teased about being flat chested. Well you can guess the rest. Surely enough, when it came time for me to do my measurements with my partner Joyce, the whole bra thing fell out, cotton tissue and all. Wow. And it did not help none either that Joyce was my friend and my rival, because she liked Paul! That must have been one of the most embarrassing days in my life. That day I could have went and crawled up under a rock!. I felt so embarrassed that I never ever wanted to show my face at school again, but I had to go.

HONK!!!! HONK!!! . . . the loud honking of the horn startled me. I turned around to see where the sound was coming from. I looked over to the left, and there he was. It was Paul, smiling with that beautiful grin. Then I heard my sister Barbara say. Oh, there’s your sweetheart Paul. I stood there frozen for a second, surprised to see him, especially since the rumors were out that I wore cotton and tissue for breast. I would have been sure that he never wanted to see me again. But here he was, smiling as always. Hey! Do you want to go for a ride, come on hop in he said. I looked over at Barbara, then she said. Go ahead, and hurry back before dad finds out.

I got in the car and we drove around laughing and kidding around with each other. Paul was sixteen years old at the time, and he was my first childhood love, and he had a car! Out of all the girls that he could have chosen to hang out with, he choose to hang out with me. He did not seem bothered that I was flat in the breast area.

Life at home was very busy for all of us. We had a pretty huge family. The holidays were very happy times at our house. We were always very excited at this time of year. My mother and grandmother were very great cooks.

Thanksgiving and Christmas were my favorite, because there was so much food and the fruits and nuts were all over the place, and as usual a huge Christmas tree in the corner part of the house. My mother could make some of the best turkey and dressing that I ever had tasted! Mmmm… I can just taste the food now! Wow, there is so much to tell that I don’t know where to began, but hang in there, I promise this gets interesting.

I have two older sisters, and two younger sisters, I also have three older brothers and younger brother.

In the winter months my father would bring blocks of wood home for the burning of a wood heater stove to keep the house warm throughout those brutal icy winter months.

He would have one of my older brothers to chop these wood sticks into smaller pieces to burn in the wood heater. During the winter months we did not go outside much because most days were to icy and cold to go outside. During the spring and summer months. My mother would have already stored fruits and vegetables away into the freezer for anticipation of the cold winter months that would be soon approaching.

By the time I was born, my oldest sister Lillie was already married and was living on her own about to start her own family. I believe I was two years old when she gave the birth to their first child, a boy that they named Henry Ray. Named after his father Henry.

And my third older brother was still in high school. I had three older brothers still in high school at that time.

I remembered that my grandparents, Alma and Willie McGaughy would come to visit with us on most weekends, and on other weekends we would go to visit them on occasions.

When we knew that our grandparents were coming to visit. I would keep an eye out for them, and as soon as I would see my grandparents car within sight driving just within a block from our house. I would get so excited! Like most kids when they would see their grandparents. I always knew that when my grandparents came, we would be spoiled and would have a really good time.

My grandparents lived in Memphis Tennessee at the time, which was a three hour drive from where we lived. I also had other aunts, uncles and cousins that lived in Memphis.

I felt that my childhood was basically a normal type childhood, growing up with in a group of a large family, there was plenty of excitement and much to do.

James The Practical Joker

Some people say that the personality is formed from experiences that happened during our childhood, and some of these experiences stay with us throughout our lifetime, which is why I believe I suffer from claustrophobia.

I will tell you a story on how this happened. Having a adventurous challenging type of personality, which has always caused me to take a challenge of any kind, which would often lead me too explore into the unknown.

Remember how I said that we would always play games as kids. On one particular hot Saturday afternoon, my brother and I was playing a game called DARE.

This game is played by challenging your opponent to take a dare to do something that is scary or odd, strange or exotic. I’m sure that you might have played some sorts of games similar to this type. I was playing a game of Dart with my brother James. Then we got bored playing darts and decided to try a game a bit more challenging So we decided on a game that was called DARE. In this game we had decided to challenge each other upon three kind of different scary challenges that we would take. And the winner would be whichever one of us that withstood throughout the challenge.

The first challenge we took was to lock ourselves in an old deep freezer that was just stored in my parents backyard. And because it was small and dark inside. That gave us a weird sort of challenge. The second challenge was to get inside of an old oven stove that had a really small space and challenge how long we could stay in there. Because the space was such a tiny small space. The third challenge was to lock ourselves in our parents car trunk. And this is where and when things got very interesting.

Now I always played fair, but my brother James, well he was a different story. I should have known, but I went ahead with the game anyway.

When it came to my turn too lock myself into the truck of the car. James decided to break the rules. Well its needless to say that this did not go very well for me in the end.

Here goes, I got myself into the trunk of the car, and I believe this is how, when and where my paranoia set in and all hell broke loose.

The trunk was very small, it was very hot inside the trunk. I could barely move. I did began to feel my legs starting to get a cramp, it was very dark inside of there. There was no light at all to see, not even a peep hole size light. By now James was suppose to have open the trunk with the keys and he had not. I was becoming increasingly paranoid. I then began to start yelling out loud for my mother. All sorts of strange thoughts started coming into my mind. I began to get shortness of breath, all the while, I could still feel the sweat on my face. I began to feel like I could not breath. I felt immobilized. I was full of fear and I was panicking.

I could hear my mothers voice whenever I was not screaming, but I kept screaming her name so that I could get her attention. Finally she heard my screaming, when she realized that I was in the trunk. I believe that she began to panic, because she did not know what was going on, until she heard me beating on the trunk of the car yelling and screaming to be let out of the trunk.

Suddenly I heard noises that sounded like glass breaking, then I realized that she had broken out the side car window to unlock the door, and then she came through the back car seat after she tore that out, and then I was finally free. When I got out of the prison of the trunk of the car. I was hysterical and crying. There I saw my brother James standing there laughing his heart out. I felt so angry with him. This made my mother so upset that she gave him a punishment by grounding him and would not allow him to ride on his bicycle. And as much as my brother loved to ride his bicycle. I’d say the punishment fit the crime. Well as for me, I never got back into the trunk of a car again, and it introduced claustrophobia to me for a lifetime.

Growing up with a house full of siblings can be a lot of fun, but it also have it’s own challenges. Whenever there are many siblings in the home the chances to have a joke to be played on you can increase. And the practical jokers at my home was my brother A.J and my brother James. My brother A.J. Was somewhat of a nuisance at the time, he use to like to put pillows over our heads. And he would tickle us to force us to laugh until we could barely breath. Apparently this game was exciting for him. But for us it was torture.

James was also a nuisance as well because his idea of a joke was to clip clothes line pins on our ear or and our nose or our lips if he caught one of us sleeping. And if anyone of you ever had a clothes line pin clipped on your face somewhere, then I don’t need to tell you how painful that becomes. The pain will wake you up out of a very deep sleep. It’s is really that painful.

I would never forget the times that my brother, Andy would fall asleep with his mouth wide open. What a bad idea, especially around James. We all already knew he was a true practical joker, so why would he fall asleep around him.

One fourth of July summer night. Andy fell asleep on the sofa, his mouth had dropped open, so James swat a fly and put it in his mouth! It was really funny, because, I’d imagine him dreaming that he was eating something good like ice cream and he must have been because he started licking his lips! I was watching him and he actually was chewing this fly! My sister Barbara shook him and said. Andy wake up, James has just put a dead fly in your mouth and you’re dreaming, wake up, you’re eating a fly not food, wake up! Now that was funny. Wow! He jumped up with this strange look on his face.

You should have seen the look on his face when we told him that he had eaten a dead fly! He ran to the kitchen and started throwing up everywhere. It’s still funny when I just think about that day!

Yes, my brother James was quite a practical joker. There was once he gave Barbara an ice cream cone in which he had implanted a dead cock roach in between the two scoops of ice cream. I did not know about this joke he played, but my nephew Ray did know about it. You should have seen the look on her face when Ray shouted out to her. Barbara! Do not eat that ice cream anymore, James has put a dead cockroach in it! Again the look on her face was hilarious! As usual James was always up to his tricks. Once he even sneaked off into my parents bedroom and put a lighter between my father’s toes so that when he started to move his feet around from the heat of the fire tip, James would just quickly run out of the room before my father would actually wake up to see him. Sometimes, I would even get in trouble with him, just because I was found laughing a lot of times at his practical jokes. But hey it was all in fun, and in our family, someone was always playing a practical joke on someone. Hey! This is what real families are made of.

Chapter Two

MY SCHOOL YEARS

My First Day of School

Honk! Honk! . . . I heard the sound of the horn. This is one of the days that I was not looking forward to. My first day of school. You may think that I should have been excited to start school. But not on the contrary. Nope I was not liking what was happening. I was five years old, and at the beginning of the start of twelve long school years ahead of me. All