A Story of Will E Jones

Story Tags

anger, emptiness, fight, loneliness, poor, inner city, neighborhood, violence, death, fulfillment

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• Where's God in suffering?
• Twists and Turns

My story:

Warning: This story contains some depressing moments and it only contains some of the major things that happened in my life.

I was born December 17, 1978 to William and Debora Jones, in an inner city ghetto – Portsmouth, Virginia. It didn’t take me long to pick up asthma and double pneumonia. The hospitals were not especially good where I was born. With the prayers from my mother and grandparents, I survived. In fact, my asthma went away completely.

As I grew, my mother noticed how much of an explorer I was. I was a bit of a handful, running away twice before even turning four years old. The first time I went into the forest; which was fairly big at that time. I was probably chasing a rabbit, wanting to pick it up and rub its fur. Animals are great! My grandmother on my fathers side (Me Ma – I’ll use this name cause that is what I called her when I was a child) prayed and prayed. My father finally climbed a tree and spotted me. The second time was even more insane. I got out into the main highway were I walked for a couple of miles. There really were not that many cars on that road. With the help of a black man on his bike who said “are you looking for a necked white baby”, my father and grandfather were able to find me. I had stripped down and they said it looked like I was getting ready to go for a swim. I couldn’t swim! They would have never guessed that I had gotten that far, but that man, whoever he was, saved my life.

Years passed, and my Me Ma, and to some extent my mother, helped me develop a strong relationship to Jesus. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not parish but have everlasting life, was my Me Ma’s favorite – well, at least that’s the main one she always said to me. My mom allowed her to keep me quite a bit, and she started me in Sunday school. Sunday school was great – much better then regular school. I loved to sing and be creative with the other children, and everyone was always so kind to me. They had Jesus in their hearts!

My mom and dad had five children. I was the oldest, and was about four years older then the second child born. When my last sibling was born, I was nine. My father couldn’t take it, so he left my mother with all of us and went back to school. My mom, who didn’t even have a diploma, was forced to live in one of the worst neighborhoods in town. No one wanted to live there, so the rent was cheap.

Those were really tough years for me and my family. Hey, we all have it tough sometimes, but somehow Jesus guided me – and my Mom and Me Ma prayed for me. Mom had to give her full attention to the other four children, because everything seemed ok with me. After all, I had a great relationship with Jesus and I met my best friend – Kirk – that year. We are still very tight, and probably always will be! So, my father left, but I picked up a best friend. Still, like I said, the neighborhood was tough!

It was difficult being the new kid in town with kids who had never had any parents to help guide them in the right way, and guide them to Jesus. Everyday at the bus stop I had to defend myself from other kids. At first it was just nasty comments, but when it seemed that it didn’t faze me much, kids started bullying me around. In the beginning, I just tried to let it go and started developing tactics to avoid them. I did not want to fight, because I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Then they started to get to me, after finding my weakness. My family! They started picking on my little sister, and no one misses with my brother or sisters. I learned how to fight during those first couple of years. There were better answers, but I was only a kid.

After awhile, people stopped trying to fight with me. Instead, they brought guns and knives to the bus stop. They would put them to my face just to see what I would do. What could I do? That’s when a man named Sammy stepped in and started driving us to school. He was an older guy, who lived next door to us. He was just an ordinary guy who painted houses. No, he was no ordinary guy! He was a Christian who always talked to me, and tried to keep me on the path of righteousness. Wow, another Christian in my life that helped keep me safe.

So, life was stressful, but there were two more reasons for me to keep striving, Sammy and Kirk! However, the most influential of all was my Me Ma and Grand Gran. They always picked me up in the summer and brought me to the mountains. My favorite setting will always be the mountains; listening to those lovely natural noises, and walking down the lovely trails and streams.

It was during those summers that I grew a bond with Jesus. My Me Ma always read the bible to me, explaining it along the way. She also showed me how to pray. She told me to do four things and life would be enjoyable. First and foremost, she told me to accept Jesus as my lord and savior. She told me to try and avoid smoking those nasty cigarettes. She really didn’t like those things, and she didn’t need to worry; because, neither did (nor do) I. She also told me to look for the right woman, and to be patient. “She will come along, but the others will just drive you crazy,” she would say. She also told me to have fun, because life is short.

At fifteen my Me Ma passed away from kidney failure! She was diabetic and was always suffering, and I couldn’t take it anymore. That night, before she died, I stayed up crying and crying, and praying to Jesus to stop her suffering. She died before I got to talk to her one last time. That’s when I got angry at Jesus and started rebelling; but it was a slow process. I wasn’t angry at him for her death, but for the suffering she always seemed to be going through. Actually, I was upset that she had to die. I didn’t have anyone to really help me understand. No one could help me understand.

Slowly, life got tougher and tougher on me and my family. The city began to tare the houses down to get rid of the people who were preying on other people. We had to move away from Sammy and my friend Kirk. We moved to an even worse area then we were before, and we had to ride the bus. Then my Grand Gran (father’s father) bought me a car. I was seventeen at this time and had my license. Bless his heart, and thank Jesus! Actually, I didn’t do that, being angry!

Then, around my nineteenth birthday (three months before and three months after), three major influences in my life passed away. First, it was my Grandpa (whom was my mothers father), who died with an aneurism, and it really shook up my mother. Then my neighborhood friend Sammy passed away with leukemia. After my birthday, my Grand Gran passed away. That’s another bad year for me, and it was really bad on my mom.

After this, my mother tried to commit suicide by slicing her wrists. I rushed all my siblings to their rooms, after closing the bathroom door so they couldn’t see. I called the ambulance and picked her up and rushed her outside. She had to stay in the mental ward for a couple of months, so I had to take care of the kids. It was tough, and I almost failed out of my senior year. I managed to pass, and mom came home and got better with time.

The next year some other occurrences happened! This was a bad area, and people were getting shot all the time. Somehow, I figure that it would never happen around us – but I was wrong. A friend of mine who had taken up for me when I first moved to the neighborhood was shot three times in the chest in my yard. It was horrible hearing him moan and seeing the blood. He is now alive, but completely paralyzed. The following week another kid was shot in our front yard. He died on his bike!

Then, my oldest sister started liking boys, and liking the bad ones at that. She started dating a guy in a gang who tried to rape her, but I stepped in. Then he and his friend decided they wanted to kill me; luckily the cops arrested them for murder. Still, I decided that I was done with Portsmouth. I was twenty and ready to fly away from home. I came to Indiana, Pennsylvania to share an apartment with my father.

Why was it that I had to keep struggling so much?

I didn’t live with my father long, but I stayed in Indiana and started studying Biological Anthropology and the Theories of Evolution. I also began partying a bit, going out twice a week to get drunk and forget my worries. Slowly, I messed up my finances – which ultimately made it hard to (and still makes it hard) to rent anything. I began falling deeper and deeper into depression. I was studying Evolution and the Survival of the Fittest, and Sexual Selection. All my hopes and dreams were being shattered with this. I mean, I don’t make much money, I am introverted, and I am short. Occurring to Evolution and Natural Selection, I am doomed to a life of failure. Then I became homeless. My oldest sister had just gotten a place, and I moved in with her.

The depression thing seems to run on my mother’s side of the family. Well, it got so I was feeling down in the dumps quite a bit. I even thought about suicide a few times. Staying there, my niece Destiny and I started bonding. After awhile my strength came back and I got myself back on track. My joy for life seemed to be coming back to me; like it was when I was with my Me Ma. Yet, it was as if the role had switched for me. I was to Destiny as Me Ma was to me, it seemed. I couldn’t fail!

Life was good, but there was something missing. I figured it was probably loneliness from not having a woman in my life. I never finished my degree, and figured that with it I could start a certification to teach. What was wrong that kept me from feeling an inner happiness?

I started going to a small little coffee house to do some soul searching and some writing, while I listened to real nice music. It is a nice little cozy place where a group of sweet ladies made me feel welcomed, despite my learned ability to be stand offish, and unfriendly. Soon, I was finding myself going in almost everyday, just to be around genuinely nice people. I wondered, what was it that made being in this place so enjoyable?

One day I overheard one of these ladies speaking about Jesus, but didn’t make much of it. Then, I noticed that the majority of these ladies were speaking about the Lord. It is amazing how things come back to you. Then it occurred to me out of no where. I am always drawn to them, true Christians that is. Whenever I am alone, they appear! These ladies are all devoted Christians and whether they know it or not, they helped me find my faith in Jesus once again.

These ladies helped me remember that Christianity is not just a school of thoughtful theories, or simply a way of life. It is the way to Jesus; and to internal fulfillment.

So, I go back to my Me Ma, who showed me the way before. Though she is not here with me physically, she is here in my heart and soul. I feel her again, holding my hand when I feel down. I will never smoke a cigarette and I will try to continue having wholesome fun, and I will be patient in finding the woman I am meant to be with, even if it takes me forever. Yes, I am still a Virgin at twenty eight. However, I am no longer ashamed, in fact I feel blessed to be one. It would have never been right to have meaningless sex with a woman I didn’t love. Besides, I am no longer truly alone spiritually – still no man is an island; I need to learn to connect.

Well, that is my four page short story! Thank you so much for reading!

By William Earnest Jones