Elva "Precious Love" Thompson
The book is about a young woman who stayed in a fifteen-year abusive marriage for the sake of her three children when all of a sudden, she found herself filing for divorce on the grounds of abandonment because her husband walked out on her and their daughters. She then had to put her business on hold, moved her family to another state to start over where she tries to adjust to becoming a divorced single parent. With being in a new state, she strives to get her business back together, the ups and downs of raising her children alone, and at the same time, going through the struggle of getting to know herself again. It's a mixture of real life and comedy that talks about the victories and defeats of single parenthood, dating, and starting life over under new management.
Born Elva Elizabeth Thompson, but given "Precious" since birth by her father. Elva is the youngest of 8 siblings. Since the tender age of 15, Elva has been writing spoken word/poetry and shortly after, began writing short stories that turned into autobiographies. Originally from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, she made a home in Virginia Beach, Virginia.
I get so angry that I just want to put the blame on him. Just feels easier that way sometimes. I hated him for leaving us like he did, but I’m glad he’s gone. My heart is just empty right now with mixed emotions and feelings and everything going through my mind all at once. I just want to scream until I can’t scream anymore. I cried so much that I got headaches and my eyes were so red they swelled up. However I may feel, I will never ask, “why me?” I never question mishaps that occur, I just chalk it up as being apart of life, of which there is a lot more to live, good and bad. I say to myself, “what doesn’t kill me, only makes me stronger.” The typical words spoken. I don’t know how much stronger I can get. My husband of 15 years, without warning, just abandoned our three children and me, just walked out the door, as if he had the right because he came to the conclusion that he didn’t love me anymore and fell in love with someone else and her children. What a blow that was. I had no idea that a person could have so many feelings all at once of being hurt, angry, confused, and finally depression sets in and takes its toll. It was to the point that I didn’t want to get out of bed in the morning. My children had to fend for themselves for awhile. I never left my room and wouldn’t have left my bed if it weren’t for nature calling. I never ate and my kids would put plates of food by my bed. I just lay there as if there were no tomorrow. I was hopeless and felt helpless. Everyday I thought, “what am I going to do?” “How am I going to take care of the girls?” I just wanted to die and take them with me.
I didn’t want to be a single mother. My husband was only my second boyfriend. We were together ever since I was 15 years old. It was devastating all right. My business of three years was dissolving because I had to sell my accounts to my independent contractors in order to pay the bills. Shortly afterwards my kids and I had to resort to seeking counseling because of the trauma and impact that it left when writing down our feelings was getting to be too much. It got to the point where we were writing three and four times a day, filling up legal notepads front and back. I felt like I lost everything. Our extremely residential $167, 000 beautiful 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom home with back and front yards the size of a basketball court (we were the second blacks to live there), my Ford Explorer and the Isuzu Rodeo I just bought Robert after trading in my convertible Mustang for it, and my mind. It was hard to keep and maintain focus on what needed to be done. I had to face reality and come to grip with everything and get on the ball for my children’s sake, as well as my own. They already lost their father; they didn’t need to lose their mother too. All I’ve ever done and could do was pray. Pray to keep my sanity and pray for guidance with the lives of my children and life in general. Part of the hurt was Robert led me to believe that we were going to renew our wedding vows for our 10 year anniversary. We planned on renewing every 5 years. I even went out and bought the girls’ gowns and shoes only to have them returned. I was dreaming.
