People Like Us: Renee’s Story

As a child, Renee’s mother’s boyfriend killed himself right in front of her. At 13, her mother introduced her to meth. 

Then her mother sold her to a man in exchange for drugs, and that man soon got Renee pregnant. 

All before she was 18.

But she’s a survivor. Fast forward to today, and not only is she surviving—she’s thriving.

Below is a transcript of the video edited for readability.

Renee Aquai: My mother and my father had me when they were 15 years old. My mom was just a teenager, and I was just a kid. We were just growing up together. 

I was already cooking at the age of five, driving at the age of 11. 

So we moved around, me and my mom, from house to house. And she had many boyfriends. The relationship she was in was very abusive. He was drunk one night and he abused her so bad to where she passed out, and, he thought he killed her.

Because he thought she was dead, he pulled out a gun. He told me he was sorry, and he took his life. And then my brother was born the very next day.

I wasn’t able to cope with it. I didn’t get no therapy, none of that. I turned to music, dance. I did cheerleading throughout my whole elementary years. And then my mom met another guy. And then I had my sister. Life was great.

And then our house burned down. There went all the cheerleading uniforms. I didn’t cheerlead ever again. 

I found out my mother was doing drugs. So I ended up taking care of my brothers and sisters. 

When I first ever tried the drug, meth was from my mother. She told me it was better to get it from her, to try it from her first, than for me to try it out there on the streets.

I was pretty young, about 13. I started dancing hula. We would have gigs every Friday at this beach bar. One night after a show, this guy goes, hey, your mom told me to take you home. Yeah, I’ll take you and a couple of the dancers can ride in my truck and we’ll head home. I’m like, okay. 

It turns out my mom sold me for drugs. I had my first child at the age of 18 from this guy. I decided I had to leave. Just to get a better life for me and my son.

So I turned to my father for the first time. But I ended up relapsing. I lost everything. I lived in the streets. My dad took my son away from me. I started getting in the mix of doing drugs again, dealing drugs. It was fast money.

I got arrested in 2007. Met my first husband here on Guam. I met him in handcuffs. It was actually my transporting officer. He’s a police officer. 

I went into treatment. I did it for nine months. I wasn’t really engaged into it, but I know that it kept me clean and sober for that time being. 

Then I had my second child. I was a housewife. My ex-husband was very controlling, very micromanaging. To him I wasn’t good enough to go out and get a job. And it only made me go more into a depression. 

So it made me rebel. I relapsed for no reason at all. I wasn’t even thinking of my kid at the time. You know, I was more being selfish and thinking about what about me.

I don’t even know what was good and bad anymore. I’m out there as a police officer’s wife doing all my freaking criminal crap. I wasn’t ashamed. I wasn’t scared. I didn’t give a damn. 

In 2012, I got pregnant again. And I was pregnant with my first daughter. I lost her at five months pregnant. We left our child in the morgue. We never properly buried her.

I never expressed how it made me feel, to just agree to the decisions that he made in my life. I wasn’t able to grieve. 

One of my cousin, just say, “hey cous…do you want to smoke?” I was like, “yeah, sure.” And this time when I went out, I went out hard. I was the boss of me now. And I was just doing this, I guess, all out of spite.

I had just came home from being gone from my house for four days. I woke up to my house being raided. I had my son Matthew, my third son, not being able to hold him and watching him cry and he was just a few feet away from you and that just tore me up.

I decided I’m done. I had to get rid of everything in my life. People, places and things, anything that enabled me to bring me back down to that vicious cycle in my life. I ended up getting a divorce, got into recovery in 2017. I decided I’m gonna go to the Lighthouse.

That was the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. I was there at LRC [Lighthouse Recovery Center] every single day from 7am to sometimes 9pm for 18 months straight. 

I was very skeptical about God and the Holy Spirit. But there are nights and days where that’s all I can turn to. Turn to him in prayer, just about anything. It motivated me. 

And then I decided I’m going to be under the payroll of The Salvation Army. I kept on until then one day a position opened up and I got the job. I love my job. It allows me to give back to my community here. 

I’m just grateful to have a place like the Lighthouse, a safe haven for people like us.

My husband today, I met him in recovery. Met him on a hike. We would go to 12 step meetings together. Every night we’d go to fellowships. So he’s my best friend. We got married in 2019. Had my daughter. 

Our life is about recovery. It’s about staying clean every day and just living life’s terms and life at its fullest. And that my kids don’t get to know who that person was before they get to have a mom. 

I love my life today. My faith is very strong, and my relationship to God is very close. God has never abandoned me, that’s for sure.

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