Welcome to Tears of Angels
The idea to create this site actually came to me as I was pondering my response to several questions I had recently been asked. "What is your passion in life? You know, the thing that makes your heart ache because you care so intensely for the cause, and you ache because you feel so helpless. Do you want your life to have made a positive impact on others, and to have made a difference in their lives through your own personal experience? What do you want to have accomplished in the next year, or the next five years? What is the one thing that makes you want to wake up in the morning? What motivates your heart and soul? What is the passion that drives you, and when you pass away, how do you want to be remembered?
What I have loved most in my life has been the joy to have worked with children for so many years. As a young teenager, my first job was baby sitting. During my junior and senior year of high school, I worked at the before and after school program known as the "Care Club". During my senior year, I was an exploratory teacher. I supervised a group of advanced sixth graders who provided tutoring for second and third graders. At the age of eighteen, I married and moved to North Carolina where I worked as a nanny. Both parents were officers in the United States Marine Corps.
For my most recent job, I was a teachers aide at Head Start in Bloomington, Indiana. The toughest part of my job was seeing so many children that were starved for attention. I was aware of the situations they were enduring at home, yet I was powerless to do anything. Many of them didn't have clean clothes, and for some, the only food they received was the food they had for breakfast, lunch, and snacktime. I took stock in just knowing that at least for the time that they were at school, in my care, they were safe, they were fed, and most importantly they were loved. It was heartwrenching to see so many beautiful children who were abused in every unimaginable way. I was often asked, "Miss Tameika, can I go home with you? I wish I could come live with you." Having to tell an abused child, "No sweetie, I am sorry I can't take you home with me, but I wish I could." Those words were the toughest I have ever had to say, and then to see the disappoint in their eyes, because they knew what they had to return home to as well.
My passion always has been to work with children, and not just any child, but a child being abused because I could completely relate to them and they sensed that and were drawn to me. (Somewhere in the middle I attended college, majoring in ECE, "Early Childhood Education" I did not graduate). My dreams are just the same as always. I hope to reach out and be a voice for someone who does not have a voice of their own. Be supportive to others in need. To speak out and share my experience, in hopes to help many children.
If I could survive a childhood riddled with the abuse I endured, then I know you can as well!
Tears of Angels mission statement
My mission is simple, to use my own personal life experiences as an example. I want to offer help, support, outreach, and networking, to children who are presently being abused, or have been a victim of any form of child abuse. I also want to do the same for fellow adults that were abused as a child. I want to bring awareness to the fact that, "I AM A SURVIVOR." I want to be an inspiration to others, and to let them know that they ARE NOT ALONE. I hope that my story will encourage others to know that they too can be a "SURVIVOR". If I can put things in perspective and perservere ANYONE can! Since I was a young girl I always wanted to be a missionary and travel abroad to do so. A very wise man told me many years ago, "You can be a missionary right here. You do not need to travel to be a missionary. Even in your own community, people everywhere are in need of someone like you. Someone who is strong, compassionate, and has an open heart just like you. And someday even your dreams of being a missionary will come true. Just believe in yourself, and put your faith in God". I myself always wanted children. Even as I was a very young girl, I wanted a family so that I could do it the "right way". I knew that I would break the vicious cycle. I would have never allowed the abuse in that sick family to ever carry onto yet another generation. Unfortunately, I cannot have children. However, my passion has never changed. I always wanted to be a voice for the abused. To stand up for what I know is right, and to in some way use my childhood abuse in a positive way so that more people would understand that none of these awful things are in any way their fault. Also, I hope to reach out and help others. I can easily relate to child abuse victims because of what I, myself endured. I now actually understand the reason I was allowed to suffer for so long. It was God building my strength because I was meant to help others, just as I always dreamed. A missionary, now I am, fortunate to be in the position to make a difference in the life of someone else. Now my abuse makes sense. Horrible as it is to say, I am who I am today, in large part due to the abuse I endured.