When Your Affluence Fails
How Low Does One Fall?
by
Book Cover & Preview Text
When Your Affluence Fails
How low Does one Fall.
Love Doesn’t Change a Thing
At the factory where Sharon worked, Stanley began to show some affection for her, which she welcomed, for this was not exhibited by any other. At lunch or break time, he sat at the same table with her. They talked and laughed. He even assisted her with her work when it became difficult and discouraging. He brought a luster to her eyes which one had not seen for a long time.
When Your Affluence fails
Sharon slowly took down the barrier that caused her to be a skeptic of everyone’s love for her. She believed Stanley’s expressed love for her was genuine.
They spent an extensive amount of time together. They soon became secret lovers, and he promised he would marry her.
But before that happy day came, Sharon found herself pregnant. She ran and told him the good news, or what she thought was good news, but he slowly walked away, bewildered when he heard the news.
A brief moment of quietness and deceptive peacefulness was broken when he stopped and said aloud, in an angry tone, “I didn’t want a baby so soon!” Then he continued to walk away.
Love Doesn’t Change a Thing
She stood frozen to the spot where she had stopped to tell him the news, with her hands holding her abdomen. She was flabbergasted at his reaction. She cried quietly, the tears rapidly falling from her eyes. It was as though someone had turned on a tap of water, given the manner in which her tears flowed.
People passed and looked at her. Someone asked, “What’s the matter?”, but she didn’t answer. Fifteen to thirty minutes passed while she stood rooted to that same spot, crying. Then she turned and went to her home.
That evening, as Sharon lay on her bed, before drifting off to sleep, thousands of thoughts bombarded her mind.
When Your Affluence Fails
“Should I give birth to this unwanted child? What would people think of me after an abortion? Would I destroy the family’s good name?”
Sharon concluded that she would discreetly abort the child. She found out about a woman who performed abortions at her private home. She made an appointment, and had it done.
The day after the abortion procedure, as she walked down the street, Sharon began to feel sick. This feeling made her reduce her pace. She felt a warm sensation slowly creeping down her right leg. She thought an insect was walking on her leg so she gently brushed her leg.
Love Doesn’t Change a Thing
As she pulled away her hand and looked at it, she gave a sharp gasp and her eyes bulged with terror. There was a lot of blood on her hand; she had begun to hemorrhage.
Before she knew it, she was unconsciously laying on the walkway at the side of the road, hemorrhaging profusely. Many people gathered around and looked, while she continued to bleed. Some wondered who she was, while others said she was not from the area.
One girl said she was the girl from the big house on the bank of the River Bradford. Someone in the crowd asked with disdain, “The Penning’s girl?”
When Your Affluence Fails
Another asked, “This is what she has come to?” Others insisted that she could not have been.
Then one gentleman shouted loudly, with a trembling voice, “My God! If this young lady is not taken to the hospital, fast, she would die in front of your eyes! Would someone please call the ambulance?”
One woman bristly walked to a neighboring store and asked if she could kindly use the phone. She was allowed to use the phone. The ambulance was called, and it got on the scene in a very quick time.
Sharon was taken to the hospital, where she survived the life-threatening ordeal.
Love Doesn’t Change a Thing
After she was fully conscious, the doctor who attended to her during the emergency, Dr. Joseph Flanders, the gynecologist, went to see her.
The doctor greeted her nicely with a smile, and said, “Hi Sharon, I am Dr. Flanders who attended to you. How are you doing today?
“I am feeling better,” she said, smiling back at him.”
Then, knowing that it was an abortion that caused her situation, rhetorically he asked her how it was done. With the torn tissues and the damaging of the vaginal wall and more, he imagined a person breaking a glass bottle, and taking a choice piece, infected as it was, and using it as a surgeon’s scalpel, or using a wire clothes-hanger.
When Your Affluence Fails
Sharon was rather embarrassed, so she remained speechless, looking at the doctor with a far- away look in her eyes.
The doctor looked at her steadfastly for a few seconds, and then with a look of disgust on his face, he asked her, “Was he a butcher?” He moved closer to her, and putting his hand on her forehead and gently rubbing her head, said to her, “Sharon there is evidence that indicate you have had a very good upbringing.
Yet I am always taken back when beautiful young ladies like you can risk your lives in such a horrendous way to safeguard your dignity. Now where is your dignity? You should however have a full and perfect recovery. I wish you all the best recuperating.” Then he left the room.
Love Doesn’t Change a Thing
Sharon pondered on the doctor’s words for a minute after he had left, and began to sob. Then with a big outburst she started crying loudly and hysterically. The nurses ran to her room to ask her what the matter was. She didn’t want them to know that it was pure shame that brought her tears down, so she just told them it was pain.
Formats
Book Details
About the Book
In a fictitious story, this book tries to tell those vulnerable women that though their situation may seem grim, there is a plan in place for their deliverance. When it appears as though all they have had is lost, it tells them that all is not lost. Though their tears may have flowed uncontrollably, this book reminds them that weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.
The book touches the very same social issues that we see in our communities every day. The young woman with the image of a princess gradually became a community vagrant. Sharon lived a disgraceful life for many years after her fall from prominence. Her life changed again for the better when she came in contact with a near family kin that she never knew.
How many women that you have known or heard of were called prostitutes, whores, and harlots just because they had many children with different fathers? You never stopped and wondered why your acquaintance’s situation was like that. Why are we so quick to condemn our friends and neighbors when situation exceeds our ability to comprehend?
I can very well relate to the scenario that speaks to the debasement of women in our society, in the past and the present, and most of all the women in my country. The stereotyped, marginalized, and ostracized actions of the critiques have torn the hearts of women from their chest leaving them with very low self-esteem. Many are standing on the stone quarry of condemnation, ready to cast stones that would cut, bruise, maim, and even kill those women who have lost the will to go on.
About the Author
Reverend E. S. Osborne is an uncompromising Baptist preacher, who was born and raised on the island of St. Kitts, West Indies. He continues to leave his listeners uneasy with his thought-provoking, heart-searching messages. Rev. Osborne earned a Bachelor’s of theology degree from West Lenoir Baptist School of Ministry in North Carolina. He is the assistant pastor of the Valley Baptist Church on St. Kitts, where he addresses critical issues affecting individuals’ social and spiritual development. His intention is to transform his listeners into leaders and maximize their individual potential.
He has been married to Heather for over twenty-six years. They have three children: Brenton, Britany, and Briana. Rev. Osborne and his wife speak at seminars on how to have a lasting marriage. He also sings and writes gospel songs.