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INTERVIEW: Sabrina Greenlee Talks 'Grant Me Vision,' Family, Faith & Forgiveness, Details On Attack + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Everybody is the j n V. Jess Hilaris Charlamage the guy.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: We are the Breakfast Club. We got a special guest
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: with us this morning. Yes, indeed, Sabrina Greenley. She has
• 0:14
  Speaker 2: a new book, Grant Me Vision, A Journey of family,
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: faith and forgiveness. And it's out right now.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: Good morning, good morning, good morning. Thank you for having me.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: How are you good?
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: I feel good. I feel amazing.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: There you go. Now.
• 0:27
  Speaker 4: You are the the mother of DeAndre Hopkins and man A.
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: What a story you have with a journey. What a
• 0:32
  Speaker 4: life you have lived and still living.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely, I'm still here now.
• 0:37
  Speaker 4: For those who may not know, you were blind, but
• 0:41
  Speaker 4: you weren't born blind. You actually became blind after an
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: acid attack in two thousand and two.
• 0:50
  Speaker 5: Yes, I was brutally assaulted in two thousand and two
• 0:54
  Speaker 5: by a young lady that, unbeknownst to me, we were
• 0:57
  Speaker 5: dating the same guy. And I was called to a
• 1:00
  Speaker 5: place by him one day and I went out there
• 1:02
  Speaker 5: looking for my car, and she came out called my name,
• 1:07
  Speaker 5: screamed my name Sabrina, and she threw a concoction of
• 1:11
  Speaker 5: bleach and mixed with red devil eyes. She threw it
• 1:13
  Speaker 5: on me. Seventeen percent of my body was burned that day.
• 1:17
  Speaker 5: I fell to my knees and he actually took me
• 1:20
  Speaker 5: to the gas station about three minutes away, but eventually
• 1:24
  Speaker 5: left me there to die. What Yeah, watch that was
• 1:31
  Speaker 5: I think that was the nearest, the closest thing that
• 1:34
  Speaker 5: he could find, but it was. It was just such
• 1:37
  Speaker 5: a terrifying moment for me. And if it had not
• 1:40
  Speaker 5: been for the gas attendant to, you know, call down
• 1:43
  Speaker 5: one one and get me help, I probably would have
• 1:46
  Speaker 5: died that day.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Jesus Lord, there's a man that you were dating, that
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: you thought loved you, liked you, and cared about you,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: and just left you to die.
• 1:54
  Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, DJMB. He literally was in my life for
• 1:58
  Speaker 5: three and a half months. So of course I didn't
• 2:00
  Speaker 5: know him per se, and we really didn't know each other.
• 2:03
  Speaker 5: But you couldn't tell me that that wasn't my man.
• 2:06
  Speaker 5: And but you know he was somebody else's man too.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: And you never had words with the woman that nothing.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: You had no clue, no idea.
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: Had no idea she existed. I knew there was some
• 2:17
  Speaker 5: people existed, of course, you know they were red flags.
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: But I was in a place where I didn't know
• 2:21
  Speaker 5: my worth, I didn't know who I was, and so
• 2:23
  Speaker 5: I overlooked a lot of things.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: There were a lot of red flags, I mean, the
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: lives of the manipulation.
• 2:27
  Speaker 5: It was super present in the relationship earlier on just
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: you know, saying he would be somewhere and he you know,
• 2:35
  Speaker 5: he wasn't there when I got there.
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: Oh well let me you know, well I'm here.
• 2:38
  Speaker 5: And it was like, I remember one day, I was
• 2:40
  Speaker 5: like I went to three different places searching for this man.
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: And I look back now and I'm like, God, you know,
• 2:46
  Speaker 5: how how low was I to connect with somebody that
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: you know eventually would have a saying almost you know,
• 2:54
  Speaker 5: taking my life.
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: The book is called Grant Me Vision. So in that
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: moment of finding out you were blind, what was going
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: through your head.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: That moment that?
• 3:05
  Speaker 5: Of course, I was in a coma for a month,
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: and when I came out of the coma, I was
• 3:10
  Speaker 5: on a lot of medicines. I remember them telling me
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: that I would be on fifty different medicines for the
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: rest of my life. Thank got them, not on any
• 3:18
  Speaker 5: of them now, but just being blind and coming home
• 3:22
  Speaker 5: to my.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: Four children, was really really tough.
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: So even after I got the coma, I was addicted
• 3:28
  Speaker 5: to morphine, I was in therapy. It was a lot
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: of things that propelled me to get to the place
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: I am now, But just being blind. Think about that
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: coming home and you know, at thirty one years old,
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: I left the house twelve o'clock noonday, beautiful day, going
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: to find my car. And then a month later I
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: come back to the same house, the same children, and
• 3:53
  Speaker 5: you know, I had allowed all these men to kind
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: of come into our lives in and out, and here
• 3:57
  Speaker 5: it is. I'm just sitting there and it's just me
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: and them. Now what do we do? Putting the pieces
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: back together? And totally blind. So it was a lot
• 4:05
  Speaker 5: of healing that had to take place, and it was scary,
• 4:09
  Speaker 5: like I'm not gonna lie. It was terrifying because you
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: are blind and you can't feed your children. You don't know,
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: you know, It's like I was stepping into unforeseen circumstances
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: that we had never been in, and it was really tough.
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: And then not only that, but just to sit there,
• 4:26
  Speaker 5: so depression set in, anxiety. I was suicidal for about
• 4:30
  Speaker 5: three and a half years. I actually knew exactly how
• 4:33
  Speaker 5: I wanted to take my life. I had played this
• 4:35
  Speaker 5: out in my head many many times.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: How old were your kids at the time.
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: My oldest was fourteen, Keisha was fourteen, Marcus was thirteen,
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: DeAndre was ten, and my baby was four years old.
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: So I left my baby girl in at the door
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: of that day, screaming and kicking for me. She wanted
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: her mom, and I was like, go in the house, I'll.
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: Be right back. I didn't come back over a month.
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Who helped you during that time, because it's you know,
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: when you have family members and friends, it's easy to
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: help somebody for a week or two, but you needed
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: helpful a lot longer. So who was in your corner
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: during that time?
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: I would say there was different people. My mother was there,
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: my father was there, people was coming in and out.
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: It was just not one person. You know how it is.
• 5:22
  Speaker 5: People bring the chicken and you know, and then when
• 5:25
  Speaker 5: the smoke clears, there's.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: No chicken and nothing.
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: So there were a lot of days that my children
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: and I were were just there by ourselves and had
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: to fend for ourselves.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: To be honest.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: They had to grow fast.
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: Had to grow up really really fast. See their mother
• 5:36
  Speaker 5: in the back room, super depressed, face swol I, you know, blind, and.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: They had to grow really fast.
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: They had to figure out like how to get to activities.
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: They had to sometimes feed themselves. And as a mother,
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: that is the most depressing thing when you cannot do
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: for your children.
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: Tough physically, you know you went through something, but you
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: keep talking about the mental.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Aspect of it.
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: How did you get out of that? Because like, how
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: did you get out of that mental space?
• 6:09
  Speaker 5: There was one day where I was fully in suicidal mode.
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: I knew exactly how I wanted to do it, and
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: I acted it out. So there was the road was
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: about four houses up. I knew that if I made
• 6:24
  Speaker 5: it to this particular mailbox and I made it to
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: another one, I could count the mailboxes. So by the
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: time I got to the fourth mailbox, I wanted to
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: throw myself out in the road. When I heard a
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: car and DeAndre he just happened to wake up that
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: morning and he followed me.
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: I didn't know he was following me. He just put
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: his hands on my shoulder.
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: As I was getting ready to literally go out in
• 6:47
  Speaker 5: front of this car or I thought, you know, if
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: I could hear the car, I could throw my body
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: out there and it just all be over. The pain
• 6:54
  Speaker 5: was excruciating, and we never talked about it for like
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: ten years later. In he put his hand on my shoulder.
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: He walked me back to the house. I went in
• 7:03
  Speaker 5: my bedroom, he went in his. We just shut the
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: door and it was one of those things where it
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: was just so strong that we didn't really want to
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: talk about it because it was hurtful. He knew what
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: I was going to do, and I think that was
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: the turning point for me. I was like, how dare
• 7:18
  Speaker 5: I leave these children? Because like the mental aspect was
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: just so hard, like the like just sitting there day
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: after day having people wait on you. I had people
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: to I had to people had to give me a bath,
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: people had to come in and feed me, and so
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: I was just tired of it all.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: That was my turning point mentally.
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: Was like I got to get it together because if
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: not the I'm going to leave these children. And how
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: dare I, you know, leave here and leave them here
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: because if people are not coming in to help us, now,
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: just imagine what it's going to be like without me,
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: Lord have mercy.
• 7:55
  Speaker 4: How did the conversations go with the kids, Like when
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: you first came home, did you explain to them what happened?
• 8:00
  Speaker 4: Were you embarrassed to tell them what happened? Did you
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: wait till they got older?
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: So embarrassed? The shame?
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: When you live with shame, it can literally manifest and
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: grow as big as you allow it. And so I
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: didn't talk to them at first. It was maybe about
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: four years three or four years later when I decided
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: to just get up and say, you know what, I
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: need to repair this family. I did this, and I
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: need to get up and just start the process. I
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: didn't know what that looked like, so I began to
• 8:29
  Speaker 5: start implementing curfews. I began to start screaming, shouting. Now
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: the woman you see, now that's all calm. I wasn't
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: like that then. I was full of anger and bitterness,
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: and so I was, you know, portraying that on too
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: my children. And I was cussing and fussing and you know,
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: doing the things like that. But I needed to instill
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: fear in them because I felt like if I didn't
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: do it, somebody was gonna do it.
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: I didn't want to lose them to the streets.
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: I didn't want to lose them to you know, society,
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: and I was like, let me do something. And so
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: I began to start sending them down, attempting to repair
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: my family. And I called them in the room I
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: have in my memoir, I call it the get Right Room. Well,
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: I will take them in, bring them in one by
• 9:11
  Speaker 5: one and just talk to them. So they began to
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: tell me later, they was like, you know, I we'll
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: do anything.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: Keep from going in there, sitting there talking.
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: To Mama for two hours, because it's like this woman
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: is crazy, she don't care, she ain't got nothing else
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: to do, but you know, but pour into us. And
• 9:28
  Speaker 5: so it began that I couldn't go out. I wasn't.
• 9:33
  Speaker 5: I wasn't in a place where I wanted to go
• 9:35
  Speaker 5: out and people see my face or you know, these
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: small town you got the rumors and so but I
• 9:40
  Speaker 5: was like, what I can control is my house. You
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: will be in this house at a certain time. And
• 9:45
  Speaker 5: I just remember waking up one day and the boys
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: had did something of Marcus and Deandres.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: So I took all day.
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: It took me hours, but I myself like hur and
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: all bandages and everything. I pull this big TV out
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: of the room. I took they stereo I took the
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: door off the hinges. I was like doing anything I
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: could to show them that, you know, when you do something,
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: there's consequences. I began to do that and it just
• 10:11
  Speaker 5: began to me sending them down, eventually all of them.
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: And I think what I remember the most Charlemagne is
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: that I would like, hey, I'm sorry. I need you
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: to tell me what you think, what in your mind
• 10:26
  Speaker 5: you think I did, because I want to sit here
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: and I want to hold myself accountable in front of
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: each one of you, and I want to say, you know,
• 10:33
  Speaker 5: I'm sorry. Now I may do something to hurt you again,
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: but it won't it won't be intentional. And this day forward,
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: I'm going to set, you know, set in my mind
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: to be a better mother because I have not been.
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: And they needed to hear that. And so, you know,
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: at first they were like.
• 10:51
  Speaker 5: No, you know, mama, you mama, you good. I was like, no, like,
• 10:54
  Speaker 5: we need to repair. In order to repair, we have
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: to start from the bottom up and begin the heal.
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: And I think it made a better person than me.
• 11:04
  Speaker 5: I began to start healing when I knew that my
• 11:06
  Speaker 5: children were okay, and just sitting them down and holding
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: at your other accountable.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: So you know, at first they was like, oh my,
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: this is some white people do we We're not doing this.
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: But I kept doing it. I kept doing it.
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: I didn't want to lose them, and I wanted my
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: voice to be the voice that made a difference in
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: their lives. And I would tell them, I said, you're
• 11:26
  Speaker 5: going to continue your activities. And furthermore, what we're going
• 11:31
  Speaker 5: to do is you will not This will not be
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: an excuse for you not making it was. I was
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: really really strong about that.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting.
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: I keep thinking about, you know, DeAndre stopping you when
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: you knew you wanted to complete suicide.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Like was that because he used to hear you talk
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: about it.
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: I was just a divine moment where God just put
• 11:51
  Speaker 4: something on him to stop you, Like what made him
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: do that?
• 11:55
  Speaker 5: Recently, we were in an interview and he said that
• 11:59
  Speaker 5: he just woke up.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: He said it was nothing but God that woke him up.
• 12:03
  Speaker 3: He went in my room.
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: I wasn't there, and he said, I'm never not in
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: my room. He's like, something's not right. He went in
• 12:09
  Speaker 5: the kitchen and then he turned to the left and
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: the screen door.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: The door was open.
• 12:14
  Speaker 5: He said, he said, Mama's always in this room, and
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: so it was nothing but God.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: I gotta ask a question right reading the reading the
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: title of the book, last thing is forgiveness? Do you
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: forgive the individuals that were involved with taking your sight?
• 12:30
  Speaker 5: DJ env I had no other choice but to forgive.
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: I have totally forgiven. I walk in forgiveness. I mean,
• 12:39
  Speaker 5: there's just no way that I could be this person
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: had I not forgiven. Now, when we talk about forgiveness,
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: you talk about the process of forgiveness.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: Right, I'm sitting there and I'm.
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: Mad, I'm pissed off, I'm angry, and how dare they
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: try to take my life knowing I had.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: These babies to feed.
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: But what I did was I began to humanize her
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: and look at her as somebody that you like, there's
• 13:03
  Speaker 5: no way you could do that if you're not broken
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: and like something's wrong. And so what I did was
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: I began to humanize her. I began to say her name,
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: eventually out loud. I began to pray for her. Now
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: that was really hard. And I have this in the
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: memoir where I say, you know at first, Like the
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: first thing I said was something like, you know, I'm
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: just gonna pray for her. I pray that God, I
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: pray that you bless her and everything that she touches
• 13:31
  Speaker 5: turns to gold. That was all I could mutter right
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: at first, and then my prayer got stronger. I began
• 13:35
  Speaker 5: to just pray for her. I knew that day in
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: the courtroom that her son was the same age as
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: my son. So you think about she got a twenty
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: year prison sentence, She's done eighteen years of that. She's
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: you know, she's been out for a couple of years now.
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: And just to answer your question, I knew that I
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: had to continue that process of forgiving her.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: I didn't know what that looked like.
• 13:58
  Speaker 5: Took some time, but I thank God that I did
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: do that because I have forgiven him and her and
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: whatever involvement that he may or may not had in
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: that attack. I had to put them together and completely
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: forgive him and her.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Did he get jail time as well?
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: So he did eventually get a year jail time and
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: one year probation, and it wasn't it had nothing to
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: do with that. There was a three day jury trial
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: and she was convicted of twenty years, but he continued
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: to stalk me and harass me, and he got a
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: year prison center, a year jail time in a year
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: of probation for continue to harass and stalk me a
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: year later.
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: So he didn't even though he drove you to the
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: gas station and left you for dead, there was no crime.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: He didn't get He didn't get convicted of anything of that.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: It was one of those things where we had to
• 14:50
  Speaker 3: pick our poison.
• 14:51
  Speaker 5: Gotcha, And so of course all of the animosity and
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: frustration leaned towards her because she did the heinous act,
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: and so we had to do that. He actually came
• 15:02
  Speaker 5: in every day of the trial and testified against her,
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: but then turned around and started harassing me, saying that
• 15:10
  Speaker 5: you took my girlfriend, you took the person I love.
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: I love both of y'all.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: Yes, I can't make this up.
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, I cannot, right, And so he So the
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: last straw for that situation was he literally called me
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: while I had three police officers standing in my home,
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: and they said, you know, they called his name, and
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: they said, repeat yourself. You know you have three police
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: officers stand here. His exact words, I don't care, I'm
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: gonna kill the bitch.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 15:42
  Speaker 5: And they went and picked him up and that's when
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: he served a year. A lot of people don't know that.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: You know, it's crazy now, you know, you forget one
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: more questions. You said you forgave her, and you said
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: you were able to say her name and pray for her.
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: Has she reached out since then to apologize or have
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: you had a conversation or anything like that?
• 16:00
  Speaker 5: In the courtroom that day, she had the choice to
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: speak to me, and she chose not to speak to me.
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: And in the three years that she has been out,
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: she chose to go to a blogger by the name
• 16:14
  Speaker 5: of Tasha Ka and speak out against me. Wow, Yeah,
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: in what way saying that it didn't happen the way
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: that that that the court records, the receipts and everything.
• 16:29
  Speaker 3: She's saying it didn't happen that way. I was. I
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: was stalking her.
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: I was jealous of her and the relationship with him,
• 16:37
  Speaker 5: a lot of things that she spoke out about. Yeah,
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: but I chose not to listen to it. Of course,
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: I'm very careful about what enters, you know, into my mind.
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: And I'm like, you know, I'm in a place now
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: where you know, I woke up that day when I
• 16:53
  Speaker 5: found out she was getting out of prison, and I said, okay,
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: I've been talking to talk. Now it's time to walk
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: the walk, you know, And so I just refuse to
• 17:02
  Speaker 5: allow anything negative to come into my mindset. However, it
• 17:07
  Speaker 5: was kind of hurtful because it's like art, Yeah, yeah,
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: you're still stuck clearly, and you know, if you did
• 17:16
  Speaker 5: eighteen years, at some point, you know, reality says sin
• 17:19
  Speaker 5: to where I need to take accountability for my actions,
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: and that still hasn't happened. But she's not my assignment,
• 17:27
  Speaker 5: and so I chose not to entertain it.
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: You have a chapter in the book called Justice, Chapter seventeen,
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: and you know, you talk about what happened as far
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: as him getting sentenced, But does hurtting sentences the twenty
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: years did that feel like justice to you?
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: No?
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: Not at all? Okay, not at all.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: What would you have wanted to happen? What would be
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: justice to you?
• 17:48
  Speaker 5: I had to come to grips with the twenty year
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: prison sentence, But of course attempted murder should have been
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: the charge instead of assaulting Boddy with intent to kill,
• 17:59
  Speaker 5: And yeah, that would have been That would have been better. However,
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: I feel like I feel like even though all of
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: that happened. I'm just not mad at it anymore, because
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: eighteen years is a long time to be without your child.
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: I was with my children every single day, right, I
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: got a chance to instill some values in them that
• 18:23
  Speaker 5: they still have to this day. I eventually got all
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: four of my children into college. So when I look
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: back twenty years and you did eighteen years compared to
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: me being with my children, I'm not mad at the
• 18:36
  Speaker 5: sentence now. I was angry then, but I'm not mad
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: at it now.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Did he give you any peace? All closure?
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh?
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 18:43
  Speaker 5: The three day trial was about a year after the attack,
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: and so I had probably not left my room for
• 18:50
  Speaker 5: a whole year. And I got up and I went
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: to the three day trial. After that, you know, I
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: was waiting on the light switch to come on, to
• 18:58
  Speaker 5: be like, okay, you know I got justice.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Is good.
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: It didn't really happen like that. I was still severely depressed,
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: but eventually it sunk in that this woman is in
• 19:06
  Speaker 5: prison and there is some justice, and justice did prevail.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: Now, you mentioned your assignment. You said that wasn't your assignment.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: What do you feel your assignment is my assignment?
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: I know without a doubt is to let people know
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: everything that I went through and everything that they go through,
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: there is light on the other side. I wake up
• 19:31
  Speaker 5: now and I'm more happy than ever because before you know,
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: the Sabrina Greenley was you know, oh you're cute, you know,
• 19:40
  Speaker 5: you light skin, you pretty or whatever, but.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: My insides was screaming for help.
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: And I really want people to know that when you
• 19:50
  Speaker 5: take the time to put the work in to get
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: the mental help, canceling and the therapy, and no matter what,
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: it is very important that you understand your worth and
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: who you are. And so when you began to do that,
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: oh god, it's amazing on the other side. So all
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: that pain and all that misery that people are still
• 20:12
  Speaker 5: you know, stuck in, when you can just make up
• 20:15
  Speaker 5: your mind and make the choice to say, you know what,
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: I don't want to be here anymore, whether you're an
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: abusive relationship or it's just family members, because people or
• 20:22
  Speaker 5: people can people be peopling.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: But when you.
• 20:27
  Speaker 5: And what when I tell you, Charlie, you don't understand
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: and it never stops right. So it takes it takes
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: a bigger person to say, you know what, let me
• 20:38
  Speaker 5: handle this differently. Let me have the tools and the
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: takeaways like I put in grant me vision. I talk
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: about things, but at the end of every chapter, I'm like,
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: I had to write this memoir with the takeaways of
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: people understanding, like how I began to forgive. You can
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: just say I don't want to be one of people
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: to say you better forgive.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: No, let me tell you what.
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: I've done for this Sabrianda Greenley today, to be out
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: here talking to women and ushering them into their process
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: of forgiveness and being that woman to say, you know what,
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: look at me, look at my life, look at my testimony.
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: I didn't stay there, and this is how you this
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: is how you not stay down.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: Do you think it was a complexion thing that she
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: did it because you were the light skinned girl. And
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: the reason I ask, and I just want to say,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: I you know, your strength is like no other. And
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: the reason I say that is my wife, who I've
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: been together with for thirty years. She was cutting the
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: face right when she was younger because she was a
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: lighter skinned. She had fifty stitches on her face, seventy
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: two stitches on her leg. They try to slice her up.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: And when I sit back and I try to think
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: about how would I feel and how it would be
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: it would have broke me, the fact that you know,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: it's your face, and how it made her stronger, and
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: how I'm looking at this and how it made you stronger.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: And I'm just like the strength that you have. But
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: I was just wondering, do you feel like it was
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: your complexion that that did it? It was that jealousy because
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: back in the day, it used to be this whole thing,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: light skin, brown skinned, dog skin thing, and it was
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: like a whole thing, and I felt like it divided
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: a lot of us just being black. Do you feel
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: like that was part of it? I am black, I'm
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: one hundred percent black.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: Don't let him.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: Dj nvy. I was bad back in the day. Now,
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not had bad now, but.
• 22:21
  Speaker 5: But I was saying, come on now, what I'm saying
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: is I was I was fine as wine back in
• 22:27
  Speaker 5: the day. But so, of course it had something to
• 22:30
  Speaker 5: do with I mean, jealousy, I think, but now light skin.
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: From what I'm told, she's light skin too, Okay, So
• 22:39
  Speaker 5: I don't know if that played a part in it,
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: but definitely jealousy. I had just purchased a brand new lexus.
• 22:44
  Speaker 5: You know, I had the guy I was I was
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: at I was dancing at a strip club, and so yeah,
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: I was, well, excuse me.
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, you just talking about niggas.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: He went right back in the nigga.
• 23:03
  Speaker 5: My stripper name was It's It's I Am. It was Caramel,
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: And I have a chapter in Grant Me Vision called Caramel.
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: You have to go to a Caramel chapter. I put
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: you in the strip club. I literally walk you in.
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: I put you in there. The upst the downs, the
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: house and lows of what a little black girl from
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: central South Carolina, you know, growing up and have went
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: through a lot of things that I won't tell you know,
• 23:32
  Speaker 5: I won't tell you too much, but how I got
• 23:35
  Speaker 5: to be in the strip club and the things that
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: happened while.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: I'm there in South Carolina is a different breed.
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: Yes, So back then, we wasn't we wasn't making it rain.
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: We was doing the r Kelly song in the in
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: the movie. You know it was it was slow motion.
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: Everything was like sensual and sexual.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: Back then. Now people it's it's like the whole it's
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: a lot. They work for it. Now. I didn't have
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: to work for it.
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: Back then, Yes, chapter eighteen sort of blind eyes can't see,
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: And the book is called Grant Me Vision?
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: When did God give you the vision?
• 24:15
  Speaker 5: God gave me the vision when honestly, he gave me
• 24:21
  Speaker 5: the vision when I was most suicidal. He gave me
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: because what I used to pray for all the time.
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: I used to say, God, give me vision, give me vision.
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: And I went through this roller coaster ride of getting
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: all of these Donor up Cornia transplants, and then one
• 24:38
  Speaker 5: would fail and then I get another one. So over
• 24:41
  Speaker 5: time it was like I was getting I've had over
• 24:44
  Speaker 5: thirty forty surgeries on my eyes trying to get my
• 24:47
  Speaker 5: vision back. But in that moment I used to just say,
• 24:51
  Speaker 5: you know, God, you know, give me vision. I just
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: want vision. Didn't And I think back now, I was like,
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: why was I asking for sight?
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: Like give me vision?
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: And it was as though he was there with me
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: all along. I have to give him the credit for that.
• 25:05
  Speaker 5: But I feel like mostly as I'm coming out, transitioning
• 25:09
  Speaker 5: out of all the drama and the depression, I was
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: reminded that I'm going to give you what you asked for.
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: And so when that doctor when I said in Miami
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: with a really good friend of mine by the name
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: of Humble, and that doctor told me Humble, and he
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: told me, he says, you know, this is it, my
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: second my second opinion.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: They told me that you'll never see again. This is it.
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: Your retinance has detached. You fought a good fight.
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: Everything that you know I worked for over the years
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: is gone, all the surgeries, this is I'm at the
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: last strow. And I realized in that moment that I
• 25:52
  Speaker 5: can't be mad because God granted me my vision. He
• 25:56
  Speaker 5: granted me vision, and this is something I don't know
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: how once again, you know, it's like I always have
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: this thing. I say, Okay, here we go it. What's next?
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: And you know, so this is next. I'm gonna be
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: blind for the rest of my life. But what am
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: I gonna do with this? And so the vision that
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: I have now, I feel like no one can not
• 26:19
  Speaker 5: feel like I know that no one can take away
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: from me.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: And how can I.
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: Be angry or mad when God granted me exactly what
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: I asked for. I would rather have the vision I
• 26:30
  Speaker 5: have now going out speaking and talking to women and
• 26:35
  Speaker 5: showing them what the other side of death looks like.
• 26:39
  Speaker 5: He granted me vision and the vision I have is amazing.
• 26:43
  Speaker 5: I mean I literally wake up every day and I'm full.
• 26:47
  Speaker 3: Of joy and I'm happy.
• 26:49
  Speaker 5: And of course, let's be honest, I would rather have sight.
• 26:53
  Speaker 5: I mean, who doesn't want to see, you know, and
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: it be taken at the hands of someone else. But
• 26:58
  Speaker 5: this is what I have, and this is what this
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: is what I have to work with, and I'm going
• 27:04
  Speaker 5: to continue working getting until I can't work it anymore.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: What what other senses got stronger?
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: You know? They my children, so I can hear really good.
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: I think that was it, I think, but also too
• 27:18
  Speaker 5: just being alert and being aware of things, like things
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: that surround me. I'm hyper alert on everything around me,
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: so I think all of them may have enhanced.
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: You know what's funny about kids. You know, I got
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: four daughters. It's not that your hearing gets better when
• 27:37
  Speaker 4: you're a parent. It's just that when they get quiet,
• 27:39
  Speaker 4: you know they're probably doing something, so that's when you
• 27:41
  Speaker 4: just screamed for them. Exactly hearing.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: No, it's what I don't hear is when I'm like,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: what's y'all in there?
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: Do you know?
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: There?
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: You go?
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Now, I think everything got enhanced.
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: Now after every touchdown you know, DeAndre gives you, you know,
• 27:56
  Speaker 4: the football. Talk to us about that energy in the
• 27:59
  Speaker 4: bond you feel when that happens, Like what does that
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: mean for you?
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: It's amazing because of course I can't see. And so
• 28:07
  Speaker 5: the very first initial time that he brought me the ball,
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: I was like, I was like, he coming, where he's coming,
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: where he's doing what?
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: And he he held you.
• 28:16
  Speaker 5: Know, he handed me the ball, and it was just
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: the way that he gave it to me, like he
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: squeezed my hands and he was like, Mama, I love you,
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: and I'm holding back tears because I'm like, man, you know,
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: it just signified everything that we went through, all of
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: the things that we went through that nobody will understand
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: that when that went on under one roof with me
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: and these four children, and it's amazing, Like I wouldn't
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: trade it for the world. And so now of course
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: he's you know, he's on his third team and I
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: can't always be in the end zone to him get
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: me the ball, but he makes sure I still get
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: my balls.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: He makes sure's that whole room of football.
• 28:57
  Speaker 5: Some are deflated, some are it's like like, you know,
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: he's in his twelfth season, but I still have those balls,
• 29:05
  Speaker 5: and I think over time, you know, we give them
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: some of the family members and things like that, but.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: I have the majority.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: You're from Clemson too.
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: We are from Clemson, South Carolina. No, not from Clemson. No,
• 29:17
  Speaker 5: not from Clemson. It only started when we were in Houston.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 29:21
  Speaker 5: So but no, I'm from Clemson, South Carolina, proud bleed Orange.
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, South Carolina. Let's go.
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: You have a chapter called ending Generational Curses. What was
• 29:34
  Speaker 4: some generational curses that you felt you needed to break?
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: The biggest one, the most relevant one was keeping secrets.
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: We were notorious for keeping secrets, and so I think
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: what what stands out the most was when my brother
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: passed away. He got shot by the police in ninety seven.
• 29:58
  Speaker 5: He was in a domestic violence, a dispute himself. Three
• 30:01
  Speaker 5: or four officers come in open fire on him and
• 30:04
  Speaker 5: killing him instantly. And I never forget. My father went
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: down there to the room that he was staying in
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: and there was a tape recorder and he came back.
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: He grabbed the tape recorder and his rings that he
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: had got from Clemson because he was a very prominent
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: football player Clemson, and he shoves this tape record in
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: my hand, and he says, I don't ever want to
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: you know, I don't ever want to see this MF
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: thing again. And I'm like, god, you know, I'm twenty something.
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: I was like, what do I do?
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: Well?
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: I keep it, and I keep it for many many years,
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: and eventually I give it to his daughter, who grew
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: up to be a prominent lawyer in Atlanta. But that
• 30:43
  Speaker 5: was my way of saying, you know what, like I
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: want this out and even talking about it now. I
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: only spoke about it, you know now. And my father
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: had no idea, right I was writing a book, and
• 30:54
  Speaker 5: I was like, like, this can't we can't keep this anymore,
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: like this is this, this is gonna infest us forever
• 31:01
  Speaker 5: if I don't talk about this. And so I think
• 31:04
  Speaker 5: that was one of the things I put in the chapter.
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: I was like, you know what, talking about this tape
• 31:08
  Speaker 5: recorder and what he left. I don't want to keep
• 31:11
  Speaker 5: secrets anymore. So that was my That was I think
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: that was the most prominent thing that I could talk about,
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: was breaking generations and the curses.
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: And there were many more. I mean, we were in.
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: A house like you know, you you don't talk about
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: things and even talk I was. I was raped and
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: molested at the age of ten, and I was told,
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: you're not going to mess up his family. Go somewhere
• 31:30
  Speaker 5: and set your fast ass down. We're not gonna talk
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: about this.
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: That I was. I was.
• 31:37
  Speaker 5: I was raped by a reverend. Yeah, a reverend, A
• 31:40
  Speaker 5: family member.
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: He was.
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: He was a family member.
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: And so like, just exposing those things now, it puts
• 31:47
  Speaker 5: you on a vulnerable state. However, there are somebody that's
• 31:50
  Speaker 5: going through these things now that needs to know. You
• 31:53
  Speaker 5: know that they need to be talked about. They need
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: to be brought to the surface, because that's the only
• 31:56
  Speaker 5: way that you're going to heal.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: Believe you when it happened, Did they believe you?
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: And not at all? Not at all. My mother and
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: my grandmother, they totally did not believe me.
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: How did that change your relationship with them if it
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: did at all?
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: Well, I learned early on that I couldn't trust people.
• 32:13
  Speaker 5: And then you know, and I talk about that in
• 32:18
  Speaker 5: the book. There's a there's a place where I mentioned
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: that ten year that ten year old little girl died
• 32:23
  Speaker 5: that day and she was like angry and mad, and
• 32:27
  Speaker 5: then when she awakened, you know she was present in
• 32:29
  Speaker 5: every relationship because she was She was the one that
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: was fighting and cussing and mad and angry, right she
• 32:36
  Speaker 5: and she had a lot to do with how I
• 32:38
  Speaker 5: parented my children and the decisions that I made, And
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: so it's just it was one of those things where
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: I had to really get a grip on and understand
• 32:47
  Speaker 5: that man, like, this kid is hurting.
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: But why, you.
• 32:52
  Speaker 5: Know, because we were offended, we were hurt, we know,
• 32:55
  Speaker 5: you know, she was molested. All of these things were
• 32:58
  Speaker 5: present in my life the entire time.
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: What I would never understand about stories like that is
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: you know, when you go to your mother and you
• 33:04
  Speaker 4: tell her what happened, and the mother says, hey, don't
• 33:06
  Speaker 4: say anything because I don't want you to mess up
• 33:09
  Speaker 4: his family. So there is some type of protectiveness there
• 33:12
  Speaker 4: that she has. But why don't they have that? Why
• 33:15
  Speaker 4: didn't you have that for you? Why was she protecting
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: him as opposed to you?
• 33:20
  Speaker 5: I think now looking back, Charlemagne, my mom nor my
• 33:23
  Speaker 5: grandmother had the tools to understand what was going on,
• 33:27
  Speaker 5: and you have to think this probably happened to them
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: at some point. I didn't understand that then, Like, why
• 33:34
  Speaker 5: wouldn't they protect me, and why wouldn't why wouldn't they
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: believe me? And so it just began a whole whirlwind
• 33:41
  Speaker 5: of me manipulating, deceiving and lies, and man, I learned
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: how to lie and just I was going to get
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: you before you got me, and I didn't care who
• 33:49
  Speaker 5: you were. I took that throughout my entire life, just
• 33:52
  Speaker 5: about and not understanding, and I began to not trust
• 33:58
  Speaker 5: anybody at that point. But I still honor them, believe
• 34:01
  Speaker 5: it or not. My grandmama will steal my grandmama, my
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: mam will still my mama. I didn't understand it, but
• 34:07
  Speaker 5: I love them.
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: I saw you say that the woman you are today,
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: if you had to do it all over again, you
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: wouldn't change a.
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: Thing now, one single thing really now, one single thing.
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: And people when I say that, they're like, what do
• 34:19
  Speaker 5: you mean? You are blind? Like you wasn't born by
• 34:23
  Speaker 5: But I take all of that, And if you take
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: all of that and you mix it up, how could
• 34:29
  Speaker 5: I be this woman today, be able to talk, be
• 34:32
  Speaker 5: able to speak out so bravely, so boldly, if I
• 34:36
  Speaker 5: had not went through every single thing? So how can
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: I be mad at that? And also too, when you
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: purposefully make up your mind that you are going to
• 34:45
  Speaker 5: heal and you are going to deal with depression and anxiety,
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: and you're going to wake up whole. Then I have
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: no other choice but to understand that all of that
• 34:56
  Speaker 5: had to happen for a reason. Every single moment, every
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: single surgery, every single moment of pain, it had to happen.
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: And I wouldn't change not one single thing.
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: You know what. I know, I only got a few
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: more questions.
• 35:10
  Speaker 4: But you know, traumas are real, and triggers are real,
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: and when you're writing a book, you know, and you're
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: having to relive a lot of these things that can
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: trigger you. But also you know the young woman coming
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: home doing interviews that could trigger you as well.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: Have you been triggered by.
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: An Absolutely all of this happened while I'm trying to
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: write the book, Lord, So she gets out while I'm
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: writing it.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: She speaks out while I'm writing it, and I'm triggered.
• 35:38
  Speaker 5: So they tell you, when you're writing a book, Charlamagne,
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: you may, you may can attest to this. It's like,
• 35:44
  Speaker 5: when you unraveling all these emotions, you need to float
• 35:48
  Speaker 5: in water.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: You need to get counseling. I was trying everything.
• 35:52
  Speaker 5: I was floating every night and nothing was working because
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: you know, mentally, I was having to relive all of this.
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: But I think just sitting down with my ghostwriter and saying,
• 36:02
  Speaker 5: you know what, I'm gonna get it out. It has
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: to get out, I'm going to be because think about it, like,
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: if I don't get this out, my brothers and I
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: here to tell their story. My fiance that I was
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: in the car wreck with that died eight days later,
• 36:15
  Speaker 5: Deandre's father. If this is it's up to me to
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: tell these stories? So how dare I allow them? It
• 36:21
  Speaker 5: doesn't matter what they say. I was like, I'm not
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: gonna let them win on this one.
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: Now, you can't. You can't take nothing else.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: How do you prevent yourself from writing a dish record?
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: Though?
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: Like, oh, it's coming, is it? If I could wrap it?
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: Will I can't rap envy?
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: But making sure that.
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: My daughter told me yesterday she said, Mama, I'm waiting
• 36:47
  Speaker 5: on book two. I was like, really, it took me
• 36:50
  Speaker 5: three or four years to do this, but no, I
• 36:54
  Speaker 5: feel like I feel like I have to. I want
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: to keep talking talking about it. I want to keep
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: telling my story every day, like even I wanted to
• 37:04
  Speaker 5: make sure that in my memoir that people know I'm
• 37:07
  Speaker 5: still struggling. I'm still going through. It's no perfect days
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: for somebody being blind, but I'm doing it. I want
• 37:15
  Speaker 5: people to know that I'm doing it. And so yeah,
• 37:18
  Speaker 5: I want to keep I just want to keep that going,
• 37:22
  Speaker 5: that energy.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: Now I want to talk about you your nonprofit Smooth,
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: tell people about that and how they can jump into
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: that and help you out with that and maybe support.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: Oh.
• 37:30
  Speaker 5: Absolutely, So, I have a nonprofit. We advocate against domestic violence.
• 37:34
  Speaker 5: I'm in three states and we really are out here
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: helping women. I have so many stories where we go
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: out and literally take women from shelters, organizations, agencies, and
• 37:48
  Speaker 5: when they decide to go into their own dwelling, we
• 37:51
  Speaker 5: provide them with financial literacy, household supplies. We do it
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: all and I am hands on every single case. I'm
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: right there. And so Smooth stands for speaking mentally, outwardly,
• 38:04
  Speaker 5: opening opportunities. That's with three olds, and they can go
• 38:07
  Speaker 5: to smoothink dot org. That's with three olds, and every
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: single thing that people contribute goes into these women. I really, really,
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: really can it stress enough that my organization is built
• 38:23
  Speaker 5: and It thrives on helping these women who have been abused,
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: and not only abused, but have been traumatized. It doesn't matter,
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: and it's not just domestic violence. We help all women
• 38:36
  Speaker 5: in different fastest self abuse.
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: When do you think twopat question? Were you hard on
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: your daughters?
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: I was hard on all my children. I was a
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: disciplinarian and I didn't play.
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: Now I have eight grand babies, I'm a little softer now,
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: but I was super hard on my children. And sitting
• 38:57
  Speaker 5: in the house, like just sitting there watching life happened
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: and things go by. I knew that, like I said,
• 39:03
  Speaker 5: I had to have a voice. I had to have
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: them fear somebody. And I have this thing. You know,
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: I'm from the old school. I'm like, you know, you
• 39:10
  Speaker 5: either you either listen to me or you don't listen
• 39:12
  Speaker 5: to the white man.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: You're gonna listen. You listen to somebody.
• 39:16
  Speaker 5: People don't understand about that thing. You're gonna listen to somebody, right,
• 39:21
  Speaker 5: And so, like I said, I just became a disciplinarian
• 39:24
  Speaker 5: and it actually paid off because, like I said, I
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: was able to get all them in college and the
• 39:28
  Speaker 5: proudest moments of my life was of dropping those kids
• 39:31
  Speaker 5: off in those dormitaries dormitories and coming back home and
• 39:36
  Speaker 5: just just giving them a chance at life, a chance
• 39:38
  Speaker 5: that I didn't have.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: Very important.
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: The other part of that question is my daddy would
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: always always felt like my daddy raised me out of
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: fear and not love. When did you start raising the
• 39:48
  Speaker 4: kids with love and not with fear?
• 39:51
  Speaker 5: When they started rebelling and telling me about myself and
• 39:55
  Speaker 5: just being like, Mama, you like you know, my boys
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: they were in eleventh and twelfth grade, I still had
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: them coming home at ten o'clock and they were like, Mama,
• 40:05
  Speaker 5: enough is enough. Man. And not only that, but just
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: like literally telling me about myself. Sometimes you have to listen.
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: I had the mother do as I say, not as
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: I do. I didn't want to be that mother. I
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: wanted to, but I also didn't want to just be
• 40:19
  Speaker 5: your friend. And I think that me just looking at
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: myself and saying, you know what, man like, let me
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: let me give them some grace because they're not gonna
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: do what I did.
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: You know, these are some good children.
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: I had to trust that what I instilled, you know,
• 40:34
  Speaker 5: now it is time to allow them to grow and flourish.
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: But it took some time because I was scared. I
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: remember my daughter telling me a few years ago, she said, Mamma,
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: you wouldn't let me go anywhere. You wouldn't let me
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: do anything.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: And I told her, I said, I apologized. I didn't
• 40:50
  Speaker 3: want my story to be your.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: Story, right right. Last question.
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: Your book ends with a poem from Deandre's celebrating you
• 40:58
  Speaker 4: know your twenty years called the screen for my mom.
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: How did you feel the first time you heard those words?
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: He wrote.
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: I was sitting there at my twenty year life celebration,
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: and this is twenty years of everything I went through,
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: the struggles and everything, and I'm sitting there with everybody
• 41:14
  Speaker 5: that I love, and everybody had flew in and I
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: was just feeling amazing. Had no idea that he wrote
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: this poem. He gets up there. Each one of my
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: children got up and says something. But he gets up
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: there and he says this poem and I'm all tears.
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: I'm just boohoo crying because I'm like and he says
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: that he told me later that he made it up
• 41:35
  Speaker 5: on the way there, just on the plane.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: He just came from his heart.
• 41:39
  Speaker 5: I had to put that in the memoir because it
• 41:43
  Speaker 5: was so significant to just let people know that what
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: you pour into your children, he eventually will get back
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: one day. And that is a poem, and that speaks
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: so highly of me and everything that we went through.
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was amazing.
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: What's the message you want people to get from this book?
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: Especially women?
• 42:04
  Speaker 5: I want women to know that there is a place
• 42:08
  Speaker 5: for us. And I say us because I'm still in
• 42:11
  Speaker 5: the fight with you. However, when you make up your
• 42:13
  Speaker 5: mind to really forgive and acknowledge everything that you've done,
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: take accountability. I think it's very important that when we
• 42:22
  Speaker 5: stop pointing fingers, and when we stop blaming other people
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: and just sit down, sit in silence with yourself. When
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: you began to just sit in silence, look at yourself,
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: whether it's in the mirror, whether you realize what you've
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: done with your children, the abusive relationship that you're in,
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: when you began to take your power back baby. On
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: the other side of that, you could scream and scream
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: as loud as you want. There is no more suffering
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: in silence, and so I feel like Grant Me Vision
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: portrays all of that. The upst the downs, The journey
• 42:52
  Speaker 5: of a young Black girl who didn't know who she
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: was going through all of this. But I am you,
• 42:59
  Speaker 5: You are me, and like I said, on the other
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: side of that is happiness is joy. And I feel
• 43:06
  Speaker 5: like when you can just understand that when you make
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: the choice, no one can make that choice for you.
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: But there is so much happiness on the other side
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: of that pain. And I want everybody to go get
• 43:18
  Speaker 5: grant me Vision because I want you to just see
• 43:21
  Speaker 5: my journey. It wasn't always you know, like this, but
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: I want you to just really go go grab grant
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: me Vision today and really really dive into it. There
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: are so many takeaway, so many tools in there, and
• 43:33
  Speaker 5: I want you to just follow my journey and see
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: how I navigate through life.
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: Man, what a testimony you got, Sabrina. And I'll tell
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: you something. You know how to promote a book?
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: Okay?
• 43:42
  Speaker 4: If you ever listen to somebody promote a book when
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: they do an interview, if they keep representing the book,
• 43:47
  Speaker 4: they know what they're doing, right.
• 43:48
  Speaker 5: Okay, Come on, grant me Vision out today. Wherever books
• 43:53
  Speaker 5: are sold.
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: To follow you?
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: Too many Faith and forgive Us is out now? How
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: can they follow you?
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: So?
• 44:00
  Speaker 5: I'm always on Instagram Sabrina Greenley twelve. You can go
• 44:04
  Speaker 5: and I'm cooking, I'm dancing, I'm doing any and everything
• 44:09
  Speaker 5: itself for driving Sabrina Greenley twelve on Instagram and again
• 44:14
  Speaker 5: you can go to my website smooth.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: That's where three o's ink dot org.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: All right, well it's Sabrina Greenley. It's the Breakfast Club.
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: Good morning, thank you.
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up Earth in the morning for Breakfast Club.