Read Now That Hes Gone for Free Online Page A

with purpose and enthusiasm. When she sings, her voice can fill a church with love and inspiration. She seems sure of herself, but privately admits to harboring more than a little insecurity. Based on where she's been in life, that's not hard to understand.
    Terri was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1960 into a working-class family. Her father was a plasterer, traveling to construction sites to work during the week and coming home on weekends. Terri dreaded the weekends because her father “rewarded” himself for working all week by drinking until he was roaring drunk. When he did, he became violent, often beating Terri's mother until her eyes were black and her lips bleeding.
    “When my Daddy got drunk and crazy like that,” she recalls, “my oldest brother would call my grandfather who would rush over and break it up.” Her mother endured this suffering because, even though she held good jobs and could make it on her own, she wanted her children to grow up in a household with two parents. And despite the abuse she suffered, she had an underlying love for the man that remained in her heart.
    Understandably, Terri greatly feared her father and stayed out of trouble so as to not incur his wrath. In junior high school, she was a cheerleader, an all-star basketball player and a standout on the tennis team. Then, when she was 16, her father died suddenly of a heart attack—and everything changed. Terri's mother, now the sole support of her family, worked a series of well-paying jobs while going to school to become an accountant. She often went to the library to study during the evenings, leaving her five children at home unsupervised.
    Her father had been the disciplinarian. With him gone Terri went wild— drinking and staying out later and later every night. She dropped out of school and took up life on the streets. Predictably, she met a dealer who got her into drugs (she preferred cocaine). In order to get money for drugs she had to sell her body, so her dealer also became her pimp. Eventually, they made their way down to Jacksonville, Florida.
    It was a tough life. When she didn't turn enough tricks, her pimp would beat her up and make her go out again. She got pregnant and had her first child, Valadd. Still needing to work and still addicted to drugs, she moved into an apartment with another prostitute who also had a child. In the evenings, her pimp stayed in the apartment with the children while Terri and the other prostitute went out on the street.
    Several years later, she again got pregnant. She was so hopelessly addicted to drugs and alcohol that she kept using during her pregnancy. Her second son, Daniel, was born with cerebral palsy and weighed just over one pound. With her son dying in her arms, Terri got on a bus and went home to Kalamazoo and asked her mother to help. Her mother immediately put both Terri and the child into her car and took them to Borgess Hospital. After examining Daniel, the doctors at Borgess realized he needed immediate help that they were not prepared to give. So Terri and her son were rushed by ambulance the 150 miles to Detroit, where specialists at Children's Hospital performed an emergency tracheotomy and saved Daniel's life. They stayed at the Ronald McDonald house for two months and when the boy's condition improved they moved back in with Terri's mother in Kalamazoo.
    “Having been through all that,” Terri recalls, “you'd think I would have learned my lesson. But no. The visiting nurses would come to my Mom's house on Fridays and when they did, I used that time to go to the bar and drink. After a while, I left my kids with Mom and went back to my pimp in Florida. One night, I got sloppy drunk and made the mistake of getting in a car with two guys. I realized the spot I was in and pleaded with these men to take me home because I had a sick child. Well, they did drive me back to the apartment, but not before they both raped me.
    “That was it. I finally had had enough. I moved