No Legs to Walk but Wings to Fly

No Legs to Walk but Wings to Fly

by Hayde Navidad Watson
No Legs to Walk but Wings to Fly

No Legs to Walk but Wings to Fly

by Hayde Navidad Watson

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Overview

Embark On The Remarkable Story Of Hayde Navidad Watson Born Into Poverty And Contracted Polio In Her Legs At The Young Age Of Two She Was Taken From Her Father And Abandoned By Her Mother And Neglected By Her Family Members She Was Forced To Survive The Streets Of Mexico Crawling Around Begging For Food And Water She Was Rescued My Nuns And Grew Up In A convent When She Was Of Age She Left And Started WorkingThen Saved Enough To Start Her Own Business Then Started Building Houses On Property She Purchased After Many Years She Was Reunited With Her Father And Mother Who She Had Forgiven She Became A US Citizen Married An American Country Musician She Had 3 Kids She Raised To Be Good She Worked Hard Despite Her Disability She Lived A Happy Successful Life Despite Many Challenges And Obstacles She Is The Perfect Example Of What A Person With A Good Heart And Strong Will Can Accomplish Through Physical Disabilities She Maybe Had No Legs To Walk But She Was Blessed With Wings To Fly Through A Hard World Where Nothing Was Given To Her Only Earned To Survive To Provide And To Thrive May You Be Encouraged And Inspired By Her Incredible Life.
"Celebrate life because it's a miracle of grand proportions."

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781524602307
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Publication date: 05/20/2016
Pages: 76
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.16(d)

Read an Excerpt

No Legs to Walk but Wings to Fly


By Hayde Navidad Watson

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2016 Sammy Watson
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5246-0230-7


CHAPTER 1

My First Memories


My name is Hayde Navidad Watson. I was born Sunday, February 18, 1946, at midnight, in El Carrizal Sinaloa, Mexico. I would like to share a short story about my life with you. The life of a disabled woman, filled with love, family, friends, happiness, and hardships. My first memory was of waking one morning, at the age of two. The sun's beams were piercing through the cracks and holes in the one bedroom shack made of carton, mud, palm leaves, and dirt seeing poverty in its purest form. There only furniture was three cots with torn old blankets and small pillows filled with chicken feathers this was home. When I tried to get down from the cot, I could not move my legs I was paralyzed from the waist down. I was told later that I started walking at nine months old but contracted polio at the age of two, affecting my legs.

I was three years old when I first realized our poor living conditions. It was also during this time that my mom left my dad and moved us in with and left me with her father who was abusive to me from the beginning. He would abuse me physically and adding to that pain, he would verbally refer to me as "crippled, good-for-nothing, ugly, and no one will ever love you". These words stayed with me for a long time. Other family members did not properly care for me; they did not clothe, feed, nurture, educate, nor love me. At this young age, I was left to crawl around in the streets looking for food and water. I would ask the neighbors, who were also destitute could I wash their dishes for food. If they had no work or compassion for me, I would crawl to the mountain and eat fruit from the trees, such as mangos, bananas, plums, and other edible fruits that Mexico produced. I would drag myself to different locations across dirt, rocks, sand, thorns, hills, and slopes in search of food. Unable to reach the fruit on the trees or gather it from the ground, I would crawl to a memorial tomb dedicated to Malverde, a legendary man who stole from the rich to give to the poor. People would often light candles, pray, leaving flowers, and pesos as devoted offerings. Many people considered him a saint due to his generosity towards others. I would go there and take the pesos from underneath the candle wax to buy food such as tacos, burritos, bread, and water. I only did this on a few occasions when there was no food after being hungry for many days.

I learned at a young age that it was better to work or ask for money than to take it. My mother neglected all my needs. She would purchase nice clothes, cosmetic and top of the line hygiene products for herself. She did not bathe or wash me. I would go to the nearest water hole or pond and wash myself with rainwater. I had raggedy clothes, stained by dirt and mud that I would wash at the same pond that had green algae and lily pads with flowers on top. One day my mother came back to her father's house and took me with her because her father told her he no longer wanted me there. Forced to take me elsewhere, my mother and I took a train to Sonora, Mexico. We traveled by for three days, hungry and thirsty my mother failed to feed me; she showed me no kindness. A stranger noticed my situation and bought me two cheese and bean tacos and a small orange crush bottle drink. Once the train stopped, we got off and rode a bus to San Luis Rio Colorado, a border city of Arizona. We traveled for one additional day before reaching her half-sister's house.

Once again leaving me with strangers, my mother went to seek work in the United States as an illegal alien. She left early one morning without telling me she was leaving. The people she left me with did not care for me properly, often mistreating and rarely feeding me. I would go to the next-door neighbor's house asking for food when I was hungry they would feed me. One day my mother returned with a man and told me she was going to try to sneak me into the United States. We left, crossing the border passing through a fence and down a canal into the United States. I held on to the man for dear life from fear, as he carried me on his back through the canal. The man my mother hired to help sneak me into the United States continued carrying me as we traveled half the night through a field. That night we reached a small town in Arizona called Gadsden, where a car was waiting for us. We began driving to Yuma, Arizona when an old-fashioned looking police car, with a siren and lights, stopped us. It was the Immigration Department. One of the Immigration officers took me, along with my mother to the Immigration Detention Center and arrested the man that carried me.

The next morning my mother and I were escorted back to Mexico, where my mother left me with her half-sister's family while she returned to Arizona. The people she left me with attempted to sell me for one-hundred fifty American dollars, to a couple from the church who saw my poor condition and was interested in taking care of me. The day of the sale, they arrived late in the evening to pick me up to avoid being seen conducting the transaction. I was outside crying listening to the negotiations over selling me, and for the first time in my life I asked God "What now God? Where will I go and will they treat me good?" At that moment, a taxi pulled up, and it was my mother telling me, "let's go." Placing me in the taxi, she informed her half-sister she was taking me again. We went to the train station and headed to Sinaloa, Mexico. When we were on the train, I told my mother that the people she left me with sold me to that couple from the church and they were there to take me that night. My mom asked, "why didn't you tell me this earlier? I could have had half of the money and gotten rid of you at the same time" I felt her cold-heartedness unable to understand why she did not love me.

When the train reached a town called Culiacan, Mexico, we got off. She again left me with another side of the family; I was alone again with strangers. I was with them for three weeks before Nuns, from a Catholic convent, saw me, and showed sincere compassion for me. They asked me my name, and I said "Hayde". They told me they wanted to help me and teach me how to pray. I was four years old and became fond of the Nuns because of the kindness they showed me each time they came around. I woke one morning, and I heard the train whistle blowing and the people my mother left me with said "you hear that train whistle? Your mom is on that train, and you will never see her again because she left you for good". This family also mistreated and neglected to feed me so I would crawl outside looking for food. I came across two hen eggs in a chicken coop in the back, and I made a hole at each end of the egg and drank the yoke from both eggs. A family member caught me and he whipped me with a whip that they used to beat the burros. He whipped me so much that my back bled badly and later scabbed over; he hit my eye, leaving it blackened and swollen. Some of the kids saw it and ran to tell the Nuns that they were beating me. The Nuns came to the house and found me beaten, bruised, scared, and alone.

The Nuns picked me up from the floor and said "come with us little girl we will take good care of you. You will have three meals a day and a place to rest, and we will make sure no one neglects or hurts you again". They seemed like angels, saving me from this horrible life I had come to know. They took me to the Catholic convent and school to care for me. My life completely changed there, I had a bed, plenty of food and shown love for the first time in my life. When they picked me up, I had head lice, was anemic, had boils, various skin infections, and paralyzed, from the waist down. My legs deformed from improperly healed breaks after falling from a burro, were in pain most of the time. It was so bad I would put my feet on my shoulders, back, and drag myself across the floor. After taking me to the convent, the Nuns started a donation fund to take care of all my medical needs. The Nuns would go to baseball games asking for donations from the people there. They raised three thousand pesos for my medical needs.

The recovery process began as they shaved my head bald because of lice. The Nuns treated all my wounds and fed me until I was healthy and strong. When I was healthy enough for surgery, the Nuns had the doctors perform surgical procedures to straighten my legs and bones placing metal pins in my hips, knees, and legs. I was in a half body cast from the waist down for three months. The Nuns would visit me while I was healing. They taught me basic verbal skills and words to help me speak clearer because I had a thick accent and did not pronounce the words clearly, but they were very patient with me and taught me well. The doctors placed braces on my legs after removing the cast and assisted me in taking my first steps. With the braces attached, to my wrist, I learned to walk again one-step at a time. When I healed enough to leave the hospital, the Nuns took me back to the Catholic school to teach me. There I learned discipline, respect, courtesy, kindness, faith, and love. I received a basic education learning to read and along with how to be a proper woman. The teachers at the school also taught me how to cook, sew, knit, make clothes, arts and crafts and how to defend myself. While at the convent, I met and made friends with other girls who were friendly and kind to me.

I started to work in the convent earning money, and purchasing items for my daily needs and I also began saving money for the day I was to leave as an adult. I also made crowns for funerals, piñatas for parties, and candles for various ceremonies. I maintained these jobs to the best of my ability always receiving compliments on my work. I was able to save five thousand pesos, which the Nuns kept for me until the day I left. At the age of fourteen, the Nuns offered me the opportunity to become a Nun but I declined because I wanted a life outside the convent. The Nuns contacted my mother, and they told her to come pick me up because they had done all they could for me, and I was ready to live life.

My mother sent her brother, Gilbert to pick me up from the convent. When he saw me, he was happy and pleased that I had healed from all my illnesses and had grown up to be a sweet girl. He then took me to see different family members to show them that I had not died on the streets. Some family members were pleased, and some were still cruel and unpleasant. Then we rode the bus for three days across the Mexican desert to Sonora San Luis Rio Colorado; the journey was scorching, but I would begin my new life in the United States. My uncle was very helpful and kind to me. I had a head full of dreams of a new and exciting life and hopes and expectations that things would be different. We went to the property that my mother had purchased for a hundred and fifty dollars. The house on the property that I was supposed to live in was a one-bedroom shack made of adobe and carton. When I saw the place, my heart sunk with the thought that nothing had changed, but I knew that I was going to make this place better and more presentable.

A week after I arrived, my mother came with a nine-month-old baby boy and an American man. I thought she was going to show me some love or affection, but she did not even greet me. When she introduced me to her new husband, she told him I was her niece and not her daughter. I felt very sad that she was ashamed to tell her husband who I was. A week later my mother's baby boy got sick, and the doctor said he needed a blood transfusion to continue to live. I donated my blood for the baby because my blood type was the only kind that matched. The Arizona newspaper published an article about a disabled girl who saved her little brother with a blood transfusion. My mother's husband found out who I was from the article. He took the news badly and told my mother he wanted a divorce because he found out she abandoned and disowned me at a young age. He could not believe that a woman was capable of such cold-heartedness and cruelty toward a poor disabled little girl. After that, my mother always blamed me for her husband leaving her. Soon afterward, my mother left her baby boy with me so I could take care of him while she worked. I became a mother at the age of fourteen.

She had me raise him until he was seven years old, and she would only give us fifteen dollars a month to survive. My uncle and I started to work at night making adobe bricks to sell. During that time, people were building houses, so we had many customers, and business was good. I made 10,000 pesos in a few days, which was a lot of money in those days. I started making so much money that I began to repair and rebuild the one bedroom shack. I purchased a stove, refrigerator, television, kitchen table, six chairs and a cooler for air conditioning because it was hot. I laid a concrete floor inside the shack over the dirt floor and then put tile. I later paid a friend to build four extra rooms onto the one bedroom building, making it a four-bedroom house. I put up new walls, replaced the roof, cut out windows, added a bathroom, kitchen, and laid rugs in the other rooms. I had electricity installed; light fixtures and electric plugs and I purchased lovely furniture. The shack transformed into a new house.

CHAPTER 2

Quinseyera


It is a Mexican tradition that when young girls turn fifteen years old she has a big party called a Quinseyera, a celebration that the girl has entered adulthood. The girl usually wears a white dress similar to a wedding dress, has a big cake, food, and presents from guests and family members. When I turned fifteen years old, I did not have a party or celebration. All my friends asked me if there was going to be a party, but neither my mother nor any family members made an effort to make it happen. I received no cake, party, or gifts, so I told myself if I ever have a girl, I will make sure she gets a Quinseyera. I paid my uncle, at the age of fifteen, to build three more rooms on the side of my house, which I transformed into a tortilla shop. One day I saw a tortilla machine maker for sale in the paper, and I bought it for seven hundred pesos. My uncle and I set it up in the shop and started making tortillas for sell by the dozen. I was loaned all the material to make the tortillas, the corn, the firewood, and everything to prepare my first batch. I learned how to operate the machinery and hired three older women to help me run the shop.

In one month, I sold all the tortillas that the first load of corn made. I paid what I owed for the loan of materials and bought another load of corn to keep the shop going. The business was excellent and started making real money with repeat customers that enjoyed the great taste and flavor of my homemade tortillas. In three years, I made forty thousand dollars from the tortilla shop. I also started selling charcoal from the leftover-burnt firewood that was used to boil the corn. Additionally, I started selling masa for tamales and soups, which is like a thick flat taco. I met many people while working at the shop. I felt good that I started my own business and that it was profitable. The extra money I made I supported the baby boy my mother left with me giving him everything a child needed; food, clothes, and toys.

My mother would visit once a week or possibly every two weeks; at times instead of visiting her children she would go dancing. She would buy herself expensive dresses and neglect her child, which was no surprise to me, so I took it upon myself to provide for her child. When I realized I had no real mother, I went to my birthplace, looking for my father and when I found him, I was very excited about it. A week after I was in the town, I saw my dad for the first time in my life. He ran to me picking me up from my wheelchair, crying as he gave me a big, strong hug. He was continually saying he was so sorry that he was unable to find and take care of me when I was little. He explained that my mother left him taking me with her to leave me with other family members instead of allowing him to raise me. My father said their marriage did not work because my mother always wanted to go out dancing with other men, and he said he was not going to dress the doll for others to play with her.


(Continues...)

Excerpted from No Legs to Walk but Wings to Fly by Hayde Navidad Watson. Copyright © 2016 Sammy Watson. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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