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    Married to the Downlow
    Married to the Downlow
    Married to the Downlow
    Ebook117 pages2 hours

    Married to the Downlow

    By Shona Dukes

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    About this ebook

    “He just sat there looking at me like I was a total stranger. I asked him straight out if he was gay or bisexual. He said no. But of course I didn’t trust what he was telling me.”

    Married to the Down Low is a raw, in your face, and captivating novel based on a true story. It most certainly is not a modest read. Faith is tested, trust is betrayed, and hard loss causes unfathomable heartache. The only way to find healing and restoration is through God, prayer, worship, and being completely honest with oneself.

    I want readers to know and share this story of triumph over pain and trauma, but more importantly, I want to challenge them to face and deal with any broken places within that can yield harmful consequences when left unattended. There is nothing more rewarding than what I call that “healthy wholesome” place.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherShona Dukes
    Release dateOct 26, 2016
    ISBN9781370241514
    Married to the Downlow
    Author

    Shona Dukes

    Shona L. Dukes is a licensed Evangelist and motivationalspeaker dedicated to helping others find hope in thehard times of life through faith in Christ. With great passionand unyielding transparency she shares her experiences inthe hopes it will motivate and inspire someone else to keepmoving forward. Her strongest desire is to enrich the lives ofyoung women by empowering them to make the healthiest lifedecisions possible as soon as possible.Shona resides in a suburban area outside of Buffalo, NewYork with her daughter Taylor. She spends time involvedwith her local church as a director of the Music ministry andis humbled to minister and coach through various speakingengagements. She is also a contributing writer of an onlineFaith magazine for women.Shona survived a substantial stroke as a result of massiveblood clots in her brain at age 35. According to physicians,it was medically impossible for her to have survived suchtrauma. Even with some traces of clots remaining, God raisedher up from this near death experience without any physicaltherapy or any of her faculties lacking. Knowing that God allowedher to escape death has given her a new appreciationfor life and there is no stopping her now.

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    • 5/5
      I really don’t know where to start. I could relate in so many areas in this book going through my transformation myself learning who I am learning to love myself thank you my sister for sharing. It brought me back to where I needed to be loving me.

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    Married to the Downlow - Shona Dukes

    Married

    to the

    Down Low

    by Shona L. Dukes

    Copyright 2016 Shona L. Dukes

    Smashwords Edition

    Table of Contents

    DEDICATION

    PROLOGUE

    CHAPTER 1

    CHAPTER 2

    CHAPTER 3

    CHAPTER 4

    CHAPTER 5

    CHAPTER 6

    CHAPTER 7

    CHAPTER 8

    CHAPTER 9

    CHAPTER 10

    CHAPTER 11

    CHAPTER 12

    CHAPTER 13

    CHAPTER 14

    CHAPTER 15

    CHAPTER 16

    ABOUT THE AUTHOR

    Dedication

    I dedicate this work in loving memory of my father, Arthur James Marshall. Daddy, your life ended so suddenly, but I think you’d be proud of me. I learned a few hard lessons along the way. Lessons I know I would have learned a little more gracefully if you could have been here. But all isn’t lost, daddy. If I can help another daddy’s little girl find her way, then greatness will be found in our legacy.

    To my mother, Louretha. No one can ever take your place. I could not have survived without you! You are a woman of few words, but your heart speaks volumes of unconditional love. Thank you for every balled up twenty-dollar bill you slipped into my hand when times were rough. You are my ride or die (that means you’re always there for me Ma, haha). I love you with all my heart!

    To my brother, Tevin. You’re possibilities are endless! We, you and me, we’re not defined by our inaccuracies, but rather by our capacity to study them, then conquer them. Even though you’re always trying to tell me what to do, remember I’m your big sister! More importantly, remember I will always be there for you. I love you Brody!

    To my family, my aunts, uncles, cousins and nephew. I love you dearly. Your encouragement, dedication, and prayers helped cultivate me into the woman I am today. There’s nothing like family! Thank you for giving me the gift of having you in my life. Special dedication in loving memory of my Aunt Virginia Dukes-Smith (Queen V) – I’m keeping it moving auntie, I’m keeping it moving!

    I don’t have any biological sisters, but if I had just one, Akilah Collins, it would be you! Although we are cousins, it never seemed that way. You are my sister! Thank you for opening you door to me when I was broken and confused. You inspire me to be better. Your drive and motivation are endless. Keep soaring!

    To my many friends, I can’t list all of you who were in the ugly trenches with me in the hardest of times in my life; the list would go on and on. Thank you for never judging me, only loving me. I love you unconditionally! Jolene Harris (Seabrook) – Atlanta, GA; Regina Seabrook – Rochester, NY; Annette Green – Indianapolis, IN; Sheree Woody – Rochester, NY; Kasha Cunningham – Rochester, NY; Ryan Tinsley – Syracuse, NY; Lucy D. Lippa – Rochester, NY

    Last, but most definitely not least, to my baby girl Taylor Denise, thank you for showing me how to love! You cause me to consider every decision in this life. You are unstoppable! Never settle for less than God has for you. A game changer lives within you! As long as God gives me breath in this body, I will always be there for you. Mommy loves you!

    Prologue

    My best days are ahead of me. I know that now, though I didn’t always have the ability to think that way. The human mind and heart are definitely complicated in more ways than one. Funny thing is I don’t have everything I want yet. Shoot, I’m not even married. Well, at least not any more. My bank account is not overflowing and I’m living paycheck to paycheck like everybody else I know. But ironically, I’m happier than I’ve been in long time. I have more peace of mind and I’m good. When I sit back and think about the journey that led me to where I am now, I wish there had been someone around me who would have mentored me when I was growing up. Someone who would have just been real with me and said, Tasha, be careful with your life because you only get one try at it. I probably could have avoided a lot of heartache and pain. Hindsight is 20/20 couldn’t be a truer statement.

    I made a lot of foolish mistakes and some of them had lasting affects in my life. Let’s just say that decision-making was not my strongest suit back then. The sad part is one can be an intelligent individual and not use due diligence when it comes to making major choices in his or her life. Everyone has a vision for their lives, even if they say that they don’t. No one wants to be unhappy and no one wants to experience a life filled with unexpected drama and crazy issues. We all want success of some kind. Whether it is with education, marriage, or the career of a lifetime, no one sets out to fall short. I know that I didn’t want to fail, but boy, I did in so many ways. Over and over again, too! I told you my best days are ahead of me, but the days behind are worth sharing.

    See, I believe that if more of us would be willing to be transparent and share our experiences, we may be able to help someone else through their stuff or prevent them from making the same mistakes that we did. Some people might be too embarrassed for others to know the ugly truth about their lives. We certainly live in an image-conscious world filled with a bunch of folk acting as if perfection flows through their veins. Stop it! All of us have something in our lives that has crumbled like a cookie. Don’t be fake or phony; be real. People who are hurting need an authentic and safe place to go when it’s all falling apart for them. When they know there is someone out there they can identify with, they won’t feel alone or isolated.

    For me, that feeling of isolation started when my father died. I was only nine years old. He had a massive heart attack while sleeping on the sofa. I’ll never forget that morning.

    Daddy worked for a local trucking company and one of his co-workers, Tommy, lived across the street. Tommy would knock on the door every morning so he could catch a ride with my dad. Daddy would sleep on the couch a lot during football season. My mother would not have gotten any sleep if he watched the game in the bedroom with her. He was always shouting something at the TV about the refs calling bad plays. After a few cans of Colt 45 and a bag of pistachios, he would fall asleep before the game was over. If I went to the restroom in the middle of the night, I could hear him snoring from all the way upstairs.

    On the morning of my father’s death, things seemed to be normal. My mother woke me up so that I could get ready for school and then she shouted down the stairs to my father. Arthur, it’s 6:30! Usually, within ten minutes we would hear his footsteps coming up the stairs. But we heard nothing. My mother called his name again, and still didn’t hear him moving around. I don’t know what happened immediately after that. I just remember hearing my mother screaming at the top of her lungs and running up the stairs to the bathroom. She grabbed a bottle of my dad’s medicine and flew back down the stairs. My mother’s baby sister lived with us at the time and she kept me upstairs while all of this was going on. The ambulance came and the townhouse was filling with more and more people by the minute. I remember getting angry because no one would let me go downstairs. I kept crying and calling out for my dad and I couldn’t understand why he was not answering me. Finally, my mother came into my room with my aunt to tell me that Daddy had died. Anger was the only emotion I can recall feeling at that time. I felt like if they would’ve let me go down the stairs before, I might have been able to look into his eyes or hear a last word before he died. I learned later that he had died in his sleep long before we knew he was gone.

    More and more people started filing in, but I didn’t want to talk to anybody about anything. A lot of my older cousins were in my room with me, just sitting around, but I didn’t want anybody there. I just wanted my daddy. I jumped up and knocked everything from the dresser to the floor. My aunts and uncles came flying up the stairs to check on me. I just cried and rocked backed and forth on my bed. When I think back sometimes, it seems like it happened just yesterday, even though it was so many years ago.

    CHAPTER 1

    The years to follow were interesting, and that’s putting it mildly. Tribal knowledge, in the field of psychology, says that girls who are raised without a father grow up to be women who tend to look for love in all the wrong places. They say that the little girl inside us is unconsciously searching for her father’s love in the men she dates. I don’t know if that is true in my case, because my father didn’t walk out on me–he died. And I always knew he loved me. But I guess it’s very possible. My father was the more affectionate parent of the two and when he died, parts of my mother died with him. Now don’t get me wrong, she held us down. Every year we had new furniture in the house, she always kept a nice car and I never wanted for anything. Bills were always

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