A Changed Woman

By: Keisha Ramos

Described as a lovable mother, a caring person, a true friend, by her friends, Aixa Morales has, however lived a life of hurt and hardships.

“Since the day I was born my life was difficult,” Morales said. At the age of one her parents divorced. She and her twin sister were raised by her mother. Morales was born August 26, 1961 , in Bronx , N.Y. Morales and her twin sister lived a “wild life.” “We would act out in the streets, looking for trouble,” she said. While their mother thought they were sleeping, Morales and her sister would go out partying, and getting into trouble.

Morales is tall, with long black curly hair, with the looks of a model. The “wild life” she lived as a child, grew to being the “wild life” she lived as an adult. “I got into relationships with guys that were worth nothing,” she said. A man she described as “one of these guys” was her first husband, with whom she had a daughter. “He used to beat me up everyday and he was using marijuana, and I got into marijuana with him,” she said. As time passed, Morales’ life with her husband got harder and she eventually left him.

What she found instead was a drug dependency. She was sniffing a lot of cocaine, doing really badly. Her best friend, Ivonne Rodriguez, helped her out. “If it wasn’t because of Ivonne, I think I would have been dead right now,” Morales said. “I thank god so much that I’m not.”

But Morales got even deeper into drugs when she met Orlando, her second husband, which whom she had a son and a daughter. Orlando was a popular drug dealer in Puerto Rico . “He was getting really big in that world,” Morales said. Due to that he had a lot of enemies. One night a friend of Orlando ’s came to pick him up. Morales’ son wanted to go with his dad, but something told Morales not to let him. “That was the last time I saw him,” stated Morales, referring to her husband Orlando. “We searched for him the next day everywhere. One night I had a dream to go to some mountain in Puerto Rico.” Police found Orlando murdered, chopped into pieces, and dumped in a trash can in a mountain in Puerto Rico .

“Aixa cried for months,” said Rodriguez. “That was a big impact on her.” That’s when Morales realized she needed to change, she needed to let go of that life. “Now I see Aixa Morales and I say, ‘wow, she has changed a lot, and I’m happy,’” said Rodriguez. “I love her a lot. There’s always a magnet that connects us together.”

Although Morales has many people that love her, such as Rodriguez, her twin sister, her kids, and her last husband, Morales also has enemies. “To tell you the truth, I never liked her, never did, never will,” said her first husband’s sister. “I hate what she did, raising my niece in a horrible atmosphere full of drugs and alcohol.”
“I committed many mistakes in my life,” admits Morales. Many mistakes that make me the person I am today, also a person that is still alive. And now I look up to God and I tell him….thank you.”