Month: February 2020

The crisp morning air is full of excitable electricity. The sun seems to be warming me from the inside out. People bustling around us as we walk.

We make our way down the busy sidewalk and I take a moment to appreciate the beautiful simplicity I feel amongst such a crowd. I consciously feel his hand wrapped so perfectly around mine, our steps naturally in sync. I look up to my left and he looks back down at me with eyes full of love and a smile filled with hope.

Life is good.

The sign suddenly overhead reads “Welcome to Mt. Heavenly”. As we approach the gondola I realize we’re actually getting on. Excitement fills my bones. I squeeze his hand and give him a quick peck on the cheek before hoisting myself up into the seat. He slides in next time me, arm around me as we release the overwhelming joy with laughter.

The view is stunning.

The first terrace is the souvenir shop, the second is lively with a restaurant and some sort of giant blowup bouncy house. After exploring both we make our way to the ski lift. Looks like it’s not open to the general public.

“Bummer,” I say, “bet it’s beautiful up there.”

He grabs my hand and we’re walking up the steps to board. The kid working starts to say we can’t get on, but his training didn’t include bargaining with Joe Girres. He quickly ushers us on and off we go. Up, up, up, as the people below us get smaller and smaller, the view of the lake gets bigger and bigger.

The heat of the day is setting in. We’re both sweating. Laughing about how perfectly things worked out in finding ourselves here. When the lift reaches the platform we jump off. I look up the mountain to see a daunting, dusty trail ahead of us.

“Race-ya-to-the-top-ready-set-go!” I holler back over my shoulder.

Three seconds later, I’ve been scooped up and we’re bounding up the trail in a sweaty, breathless knot of laughter. 20 yards later he puts me down and we take a moment to enjoy the scenery that we are solely engulfed in.

As we approach the tippy top of the mountain, a ski deck comes in sight. Not a soul around, but us. We climb up onto the rickety deck and take in the view of the entire lake.

Breathtaking.

As I sit, overcome with peace, looking out over the landscape I hear Joe say, “Babe?”

I turn to find him in front of me, down on one knee.

Oh. My. God.

I gasp for the air stolen from my chest. I can hardly hear him over the sound of my heart flooding my throat.

“I love you. I’m always gonna love you. No matter what life brings us or takes away from us, my life will always be better with you by my side. I want to wake up next to you, proudly walk beside you, and love you from the inside out. I promise to make you feel seen and heard, every day for the rest of our lives. I promise to kiss you goodnight and hug you goodbye each and every morning. You are everything I’ve been waiting for and so much more, I would be honored to be your husband. To care for you and love you and make you feel safe and beautiful no matter what the future holds. Will you marry me?”

“Yes!” flings out of my mouth. I leap from my seat into his arms and seal every single promise with a kiss.

As we make our way off of the ski deck, he spots a glimmer. A nickel, heads up, dated 1994.

---

My husband asked me to marry him on July 18, 2010 at the tippy top of Mt. Heavenly in Lake Tahoe.

I had known for quite a while before hand that he was the one I would marry. No question in my mind, but his proposal was a surprise. I was just so wrapped up in the amazing day we were having and the beautiful place we were vacationing, that I wasn’t much expecting it was going to get even better.

If you’ve been following this blog, my life story, you know by now that my life, much like many other’s, hadn’t been perfect per say. By the time I’d gotten engaged, I’d caught a lot of life’s curveballs… not always gracefully.

Joe always felt like home to me. He has a way of making me feel balanced and confident. Joe has given me the gift of feeling like I can be myself. He never judges me or makes me feel bad about who I am. And he has a steadfast way of believing in everything I want to become.

My husband knows all of my flaws, perhaps better than anyone, and he knows my weaknesses, but instead of using them against me, he’s always encouraged me to better myself, to check myself, and to love myself as fiercely as I love those around me.

Our marriage is a testament to hope, to growth, to open mindedness. An ode to taking responsibility for yourself, your life, deciding what it is you want and need and not settling until you find it.

This love found me when I was least expecting it. And the only way I can explain it is; I was smack dab in the middle of focusing on myself, bettering myself, concentrating on the positive and freeing myself of other peoples judgement as well as my own, when BAM, he walked in and never walked back out.

Life is full of situations and circumstances we don’t have a whole lot of choice in. So, when I’m fortunate enough to be blessed with one of life’s goodies, I cherish it. Consciously, every single day.

P.S. My dad passed away in 1994. Finding that nickel, heads up, was received by me as a good luck charm… and a Father’s Blessing. So, thanks Dad, for whatever hand you had in making sure I was in the right place at the right time… in so many ways.

I hear them jump the banister outside my window and rattle the back door open.

Sounds of tripping and fumbling over the living room items follows.

As I lay there imagining what it all looks like on the other side of the wall I realize I’m holding my breath. I let out a quiet, slow sigh. My eyes are pinned open, all senses on high alert. I’m sure I can hear the dirty carpet crunching under their filthy shoes. Step, step, step, fumble, thump, step,step… closer and closer.

I hear what I conclude to be one of them plop down onto the couch. The other two are snickering closer and closer to my closed bedroom door.

The door opens with a flood of light filling the room.

I roll over to face the wall.

Without even bothering to close the door behind them, they tumble into the bed across from me. The smell of alcohol and drugs… and sex pervades my nostrils. The grunts are unabashed, heavy, and unsteady.

Hiding under the covers I suddenly realize a shadow above me. I flip the covers back to meet a face within inches of mine. The couch plopper.

I shoot out of bed in a panic and race for the bathroom. I slam the door and hold it closed while my heart pounds at my ear drums.

I hear him pass by the door, back to the couch.

Cold and exhausted from my heightened senses and linoleum floor, I finally hear sleep throughout the house.

Cracking the door open, I convince myself to take a peek.

I mouse my way back to my bedroom, close and lock the door, and try to get back to sleep.

What seems like seconds later, my alarm wakes me. I grab my things, too scared to shower, I dress in the bathroom.

As I walk past the being on my couch I realize he’s rigged. Belt around his upper arm still, needle hanging lamely. I creep to him to see if he’s still alive. As I place my finger under his nose he snorts loudly. I leap back knocking everything off of the coffee table.

Upside down carpet pizza.

15 minutes later I sit down at a desk and my Color Theory Final smacks me in the face with the crack of dawn.

---

I grew up in the same home my entire childhood. In a small town, where I graduated with nearly every kid I went to kindergarten with.

When I was almost 19, I moved out to attend Art School. That day my mom dropped me off with a girl four or five years older than me who’d lived in that particular dorm room (one bedroom apartment) for a couple years on her own.

The carpets were blue… I think. She clearly didn’t own a vacuum. The smell was something I would describe as stale bong water with a Lush bath bomb floating in it. The sink was full of molding dishes. The outside of the bathtub was dripping Lush bath bars and the drain was clogged with what appeared to be a small rodent… luckily it was just hair.

“Our” room was very much still her room. Her things took up the vast majority of the space. She and her boyfriend, who owned his own house by the way, would stay at our apartment most nights of the week. They would trample in at all hours of the day and night. High, drunk, and shepherding sketchy characters along with them.

I witnessed sex, drugs, and near death experiences multiple times during my stay there.

Yet, I felt some sort of weird obligation to protect her, help her, befriend her and attempt to dig through all of her wreckage and rescue the beautiful soul I saw her to be.

I very obviously had no boundaries and, that, is the most horrifying part of it all to me.

Reflecting on this time of my life ensued the woman I am today to come face to face with the young girl who was so blindly searching for herself. And, boundaries abound, I can finally say, I am proud of who she sees.

I see the bubble pop up in the right hand corner of my screen. I have a new message.

Probably the press wondering where the newspaper is. I’d better check it.

I minimize my window and open my email. One unread message, but it’s not for work.

I open the message. I am instantly sweating. Flushed. Confused. In shock. Speechless. Motionless. Questioning realty.

I pick my jaw up off my desk and exit out of my email.

I don’t have time for this. We’re past deadline, the press will be calling any minute. I’ve got to get my work done. Why would he email me that? At work, of all times. To my work email. Is this some sort of joke?

I need to focus.

Just finish the paper and then you can figure this out. 

What an asshole.

Focus.

As I diligently try to maintain enough mindfulness to make it to press, the message keeps flashing through my mind over and over and over.

As I’m fixated on the words, the phone startles me. I pick it up. It’s the press shop confirming final file receipt. Next thing I know I’m putting the phone back down.

I hope I responded… I can’t remember. I think I did. Oh well.. I’ve got to get to my parents. 

I grab all my things and make a mad dash for the door. As I exit the office the summer heat slaps me in the face. I fumble my keys and finally get into my car and start the ignition.

Suddenly I’m in the driveway realizing, for the first time, it is shaped like a Y. His jeep is parked 50 yards away on my right at the pole barn and her car is parked in front of the house to my left. As I drive up the stem I can feel the V tear away at my heart.

Who do I go to first?

I feel myself yank the wheel sharply to the left at the last minute. I throw it in park and race into the house.

There’s Mom. Sitting on the couch. Alone. She looks up at me as I walk in the room and I instantly feel our roles reverse. I sit next to her and hold her, rocking her, calming her, comforting her best I can.

She confirms the news.

Once my brothers have arrived I head out to the shop.

There he is, bourbon in one hand, Copenhagen in lip. Sitting, pathetically, in a lawn chair with a fan blowing directly at him. Feet up on a cooler.

As if he’s camping.

He shoots me that timid smirk he gives when he is checking the temperature of the situation. The kind of smirk you silently toss towards your best friend while sharing an inside joke in public.

Again, I begin to sweat, flushed, confused… as the message flashes before my eyes.

“I’ve asked your mom for a divorce. I’ll be staying in the shop until I figure something else out. Thought you should know.”

---

My mom met the man I called my step-dad when I was nine years old. They married when I was 10. Almost exactly 13 years later he surprised her, and the rest of the family, with a divorce.

Growing up, I was close to him. Due to some of the things I went through as a kid… and being a teenage girl for a period of time… meant my mom and I butted heads fairly frequently.

My step-dad was never a disciplinarian and rarely involved himself in the actual disagreements my mom and I had over the years, but after Mom went to bed he would always stay up late and pretend everything was ok, which made me feel like it was too.

The way timing worked out, I was the kid who lived within that marriage for the most amount of time. I witnessed every fight. Every act of love and kindness. I watched him drink bourbon after bourbon and her stress over whether his car was in a ditch or if he was still just bellied up to the bar. Witnessed gift exchanges and hugs and kisses. I listened to her vent about his messiness and him whine about not getting enough attention from her. And, I walked on eggshells for a good portion of eight years.

To say I was surprised he thought about or considered divorce wouldn’t be accurate, but when he actually asked for it, I was.

Raised by a woman who believed, with every ounce of her being, that marriage is forever. Engraining in each of her kids that you be sure to choose the right person, because that will have a big impact on how much work your marriage will be. Not, how quickly it will end. How hard you will work to make it last.

That’s why their divorce actually happening was never on my radar.

I was 23 when my parents separated, 25 when the divorce was finalized. And let me tell you, divorce sucks at any age. Going through it as an adult, I honestly don’t understand how children survive it.

It was ugly. Trust was lost. Relationships shattered. My family, at times, felt like it was hanging from a raw thread.

But, today, we are better for it. My mom, my brothers, my sister, we’re all better for it. Not that we don’t have scars or that some wounds aren’t still healing. But, better because we survived another blow. Better because we’ve been reminded, again, no matter what life throws at us, no matter how much we disagree or how different we feel and see things… we’re still together. When the goin gets tough we still choose each other, over and over.

Today is the day.

I have never seen Dad cry before… or this happy.

A million questions are flooding my mind. When will he be here? Will he like me? Is he as nervous as I am? Will he feel like he doesn’t belong or will he fit right in? Will he be mad at us for living so long without him? Does he look like me? Does he look like the boys? Does he look like Dad?

I’m going to make sure he feels loved. I bet it would be hard to walk in here, five to one. All of us staring at him, picking his features apart, his mannerisms.

Will I recognize him? Will he see himself in us?

My palms are sweating. I can’t tell if I’m more nervous or excited.

Finally! I hear the truck pull into the driveway. He’s here!

When he walks in I feel as if I’ve known him my entire life. Like he’s been here all along. He looks like us, wow… so much like us.

Suddenly I realize I’ve come crashing into him, arms wrapped tight around his belly, squeezing over six years of “miss you” right out of him. I take his hand and walk him to the couch where I curl up as close as I can manage. I want him to feel like it’s at least two to four. I want to be beside him instead of ahead or behind.

As we sit and get to know each other, all of us, Mom, Dad, me… and all THREE of my brothers.Three. That’s how many brothers I have now. That’s how many I’ve had all along. He’s the piece of Dad’s heart that I never really realized was so gapping… until now, now that it’s been filled back up.

As I sit beside him I can’t help but notice how difficult it is for Dad to take his eyes off of him. I wonder if he notices it too.

“I love you, Jason.” I say aloud.

I finally get to call him by his name, to his face. A face to the name. My biggest brother. Today is the day our family, and Dad, become whole.

---

My entire life, as far back as I can remember, I’ve always known I had another brother. I’ve always know his name, his age, but never where he was or what he looked like.

Before my parents met, my dad had gotten Jason’s mom pregnant. Life took its course and for whatever reasons, Jason and my dad were on very different paths for a very long time.

But, my dad talked about him frequently. So frequently, I believe if you asked either of my other two brothers or my mom, they would agree, we very much always felt like we knew him, like he was a part of our family, albeit we never actually met or spoke until that one magical day… when we did.

I was six. I believe he was 18. My Dad had been looking for him, wondering about him, loving him… desperately missing him… for 18 years until they finally found each other.

About three short months later, my dad passed away suddenly. I remember, vividly, how heartbroken I was for Jason… and my dad… their time together cut so short.

Today is the day. For anyone out there looking for someone they love. Wondering if someone is looking for you too, hesitant to take action, nervous what may or may not happen. Take the leap. You never know how much time you have left. Every day is one less opportunity to get to know them or a piece of yourself. Be brave. You never know, maybe you’ll fit right in.

“I am addicted to heroin.”

And with those words ringing through my ears, swirling around my mind, and flushing down into every nerve in my body… my entire life literally flashes before my eyes.

I am so caught up in my own shock, wander, and internal chaos, I can’t even muster the voice to ask a single one of the thousand questions I have on the tip of my tongue.

I am suddenly plum full with feelings of anger, distraught, urgency, sadness, devastation, heartbreak and flight… more than fight… and all I can think, is how in the hell did I get here?

Abruptly, I hear all of those questions pour out of my mouth at an inundating pace. Questions with so much belligerence I don’t even recognize myself.

I feel so physically removed from the situation my ability to hear any answers seems to have escaped me. I’m completely entrenched in my own thoughts; how did I not know this? I did know this. How did I ignore all of those signs? Why am I still standing here? I love him. How can I possibly still love him? How long has this been going on? The first sign… from OVER A YEAR AGO smacks me in the face. Dear God what kind of life have I been living… and how could I ever possibly fix this?

My pride impedes me from calling for help. My loyalty blurs my vision. My codependency alters my common sense.

My attachment to four years with the same person, four years of dedication, devotion, love, memories, firsts and the paralyzing fear of change… make me stay.

I am a heroin addicts girlfriend… better put… a heroin addicts “mother”, “babysitter”, “stalker”, “monarch”, “caregiver”, “slave”, “bank”, “shelter”, “driver”… “silent assassin, clothed in love”.

There is nothing I like about who I have become.

---

I am the child of two father figures. Both alcoholics.

Adult children of alcoholics often either become alcoholics, marry them, or both. We have an overdeveloped sense of responsibility and it is easier for us to be concerned with others rather than ourselves. Children of addicts can easily become addicted to excitement, often confuse love and pity, and tend to “love” people we can “pity” and “rescue. We “stuff” our feelings, with ease, from our traumatic childhoods and often lose the ability to feel or express our feelings. Adults raised in this environment can be unrealistically judgmental of themselves and can obtain a very low sense of esteem. Becoming dependent personalities who are terrified of abandonment, and will do anything to hold on to a relationship in order not to experience painful abandonment feelings, which were often received living with sick people who were rarely there emotionally.

I dated my high school sweetheart for about four years. At 20 years old I found out he was a heroin addict… and had been, for quite some time.

Officially apart of the cycle, I resented so many others for putting me into in the first place. I was choosing the same path so many I knew and had previously judged were on.

Luckily, by the grace of God, I was released from this trap.

I buckled down, chose to focus on myself for once. Chose to face all of my demons and traumas and skeletons head on. I put all my focus and energy and efforts on becoming a better me, on setting boundaries, deciding what my firm expectations are, my deal breakers and what it is I truly want for my life, for my future husband, for my future children… for my future.

Today, just over a decade after I heard that shattering sentence, I am proud of who I am. I am happy and content.

I worked on myself and in turn I received healthy relationships within an amazing life, career, and sweet little family.

Never settle for less than what you truly deserve… not even for those you love.

I wake to the sound of “Breakdown” by Tom Petty.

Ironic, I think.

I open my eyes and watch the ceiling fan spin and spin and spin. Desperately wishing my body felt as such one fluid being within continuous movement.

I snap out of it and begin the process of opening my hands. One frozen, painful, useless knuckle at a time. Quickly realizing I need back up, I give myself a brief pep talk and will myself to roll over and reach for the heating pad. I’ll figure out how to grab it with these worthless nubs when I get there.

After three tries, I bite my lip and ignore the excruciating pain radiating from my neck, to my shoulder, to my elbow and landing at a jolting shock down into my wrist. I manage to nudge the heating pad down to my stomach and wrap it around my hands.

After thirty minutes of determination and mind over matter, I’ve managed to get my hands at least resembling flat. I will myself to sit up even though my knees feel like cracked porcelain. When I stand I realize my ankles are far worse off.

An epsom salt bath is clearly my only shot at making it into the real world today.

Off I hobble, to the bath where I stare at the faucet. Turning it looks like an impossible feat, but it must be done. I will myself to do so which suddenly feels comparable to placing my hands in a blender.

Got it. Thank God, I hear myself say aloud.

I turn to get the epsom salt. I decide not to give my mind enough time to evaluate the situation. I spontaneously go in for the kill as if I can beat my mind to the task before it has a chance to set all of my internal alarms off.

My body laughs in my face. My mind taunts me.

No matter how hard I try, the ziplock seal is far too strong for such a meek grip.

Hot water itself will have to do.

Two hours later, bathed, dressed, as ready as I’ll ever be for the day, I enter the real world.

“Hello, how are you this morning?”, she asks.

I force a smile. “I’m great, how are you?”

---

Rheumatoid Arthritis is what you’d find at the top of my medical charts. Diagnosed at 22 years old after about a year of ignoring all of the signs and symptoms.

Now, nearly a decade of battling everything that comes with it; the shocking, depressing, daunting diagnosis. The daily struggles of finding the courage, strength, and mental toughness to push through every day life, engulfed in chronic pain. A rapidly deteriorating body. Attempting to maintain a positive outlook… has been trying to say the least.

Day in and day out, I do it. For my amazing husband who supports me and loves me and cares for me unconditionally. For my  little girl who I expect to take life by the horns. To never back down no matter what life throws at her. She’ll know it’s always possible to overcome, because I do. For my mom, now that I’m blessed with the understanding of how so very much a mother feels her child’s pain. And because my siblings are the kind of people who are worth fighting for.

RA is humbling. It makes you appreciate small feats and realize, ironically… things could always be worse.

It forces even the most independent to ask for help.

To those of you who battle with maintaining a healthy body and mind: I think of you often. I pray for you daily. You are not alone. Focus on what you do have… it’s the only way to beat the unrelenting reminders of what you don’t.

We walk in like we own the place, because at 21 we figure we spend enough time here to call it home. The owner promised free drinks if we fill his place up with girls so we belly up to the bar and order a round of vodka crans.

As we sit and gossip and contemplate our next move, a group of guys walks in with some older women. I recognize most of their faces. Growing up in a small town, there isn’t a whole lot of people who live here I haven’t seen at some point, even if it was just in line at the local grocery store.

One face, though, catches my eye instantly. I know his name, but we’ve never met. I’ve heard he’s The Most Eligible Bachelor in town… which probably means he’s full of himself. Good thing my girls and I have made a pact to stay single all summer, because he’s cute, really cute, but he’s older and, like I said, probably full of himself.

So, I decide to play coy for now. We order another few free rounds and catch up with a couple of the guys in the group who we play volleyball with on Sundays.

“Is Joe single?” I hear my friend ask one of his friends.

Damn it, she’s interested in him too.

Oh well, probably for the best… he looks like trouble. “Let’s go introduce ourselves…” she says with a wry smile and a side eye shot in his direction.

“Let’s do it.” I hear myself say as I realize I’m already to my feet.

As we push through the flock of older women to get to the two guys in the middle I suddenly realize I’m experiencing a rush of victory as if I’ve just captured the flag. The feeling quickly vanishes when I realize her beauty has caught his eye… as well as his friend’s.

Guess that settles that.

We convince them to go bar hopping with us, albeit we have a whopping three bars here.

As the night goes on I slowly realize his eyes have drifted from hers to mine. Seems he’s also noticed we have a lot in common. I decide to keep pushing the feelings of instant connection back. He’s a player, I think to myself. Don’t fall for it, I tell myself.

And suddenly, I’ve been pulled into the ally, wrapped in a man’s arms, lips locked.

As we walk out of the ally, laughing, he grabs my hand. The minute our palms touch, I know. This is different. A feeling so powerful I can’t convince myself otherwise no matter how hard I try.

It’s like I’ve come home.

---

I met my husband when I was 21 years old… he was 36.

I know what you’re thinking, because I would have thought the same thing. So, I don’t blame you for thinking it.

But, if you’ve read the entries of this blog leading up to this one, you know that by the young age of 21, I’d already experienced a lot of life.

I didn’t intend on falling in love that summer. Quite the contrary actually, but isn’t that the funny thing about love… seems to find you when you’re least expecting it.

And, while I try to convince you of believing in such unusual, unbelievable things… I can promise you; the moment we touched hands, I knew. He was made for me and I for him. I knew it was crazy… but I knew it was true.

Our relationship developed slowly that summer. As I was still trying my best to honor a pact I made with my friends. A pact intended to keep us from falling in love any time soon… so I honored the pact and didn’t admit to myself, or anyone else, that I was in love with him until Fall came.

The next Fall brought marriage.

Suddenly I hear the heart rate on the monitor drop. Oh my god, what is happening? The nurses rush in and have me flip onto my hands and knees. I see the surprise in their eyes when I can actually manage it by myself considering I have had an epidural. They’re all speaking amongst each other using terms I find completely foreign. I’m not sure if that’s because all I can focus on is the pace of the heart monitor’s beep or if they’re actually using a different language, but I do know I heard “emergency c-section”.

This term doesn’t worry me due to the potentially dangerous situation it puts me in, but because of the clearly dire situation my unborn child is in.

Wait, I think the heart rate is leveling back out. It is. The nurses say it is too. Thank God.

I manage to return to my back, slowly, as not to disrupt the heart beat again. The nurses feel comfortable leaving me and assure me nothing will progress until tomorrow. Try to get some rest, they say.

I lie there, trying to sleep, but the pain and obsession over that heart monitor make it nearly impossible.

I finally start to doze off from the unrelenting exhaustion when I realize the intermittent pains are becoming less intermittent. My mom recognizes the situation and rushes for the nurse. When they return I know it’s time.

After just 15 minutes of pushing, at 10:57 p.m. I hear your cry and I hear you, my sweet angel, are a girl.  The pain is instantly gone.

As you’re placed on my chest I can’t help but be overwhelmed with the kind of joy only a mother holding her newborn child could ever possibly experience. Our connection is instant. You look straight up at me and I can see my love for you is returned tenfold.

I have never felt so whole, so important, so at peace, so proud or so loved in my entire life.

I finally manage to peel my eyes off of you and see your daddy, your grandma, and the words 19 inches, 5 pounds, 5 ounces on the incubator at the foot of my bed.

A miracle.

---

On July 25, 2012 my daughter, Siena Brynn, was born.

Over a year of countless miscarriages, obstacles, and disappointments finally brought us our blessing.  A positive pregnancy test on my husband’s birthday. And, it actually stuck.

She came three weeks early, more beautiful than I could have ever imagined. Exuding sweetness, a calm demeanor, and perfectly healthy everything.

At around 7 a.m. I woke to my broken water and struggled through contractions and complications with my epidural as the day progressed. After 12 hours of a lack of fluid in her environment she began getting twisted up in her umbilical cord. Causing petrifying periodic drops in her heart rate.

I’ve battled Rheumatoid Arthritis for nearly my entire adult life. And, complications RA causes ensued acceptance that birthing my own child was not going to ever happen for me.

Siena and I beat the odds together. I hope our story gives women everywhere hope. Because, miracles really do come true.

P.S.

My late father was born in 1955 and I was a daddy’s girl. Because of our bond, I know he would not have missed the most important day of my life for anything, not even heaven. And when I looked up at the incubator in front of me and saw her length and weight. I knew, he helped make it all happen and I’ve rarely experienced such magical moments in my life.

So, thanks Dad. Because I noticed and, because, I appreciate you.

I’m awakened out of a dead sleep. Disoriented by the realization I am not in my own bedroom. Through the near pitch-black darkness I recognize the backrest of the love-seat as my ceiling, the emptied seat of the couch as the wall to my left and the propped couch cushions making up the wall to my right.

Lying there in my own section of the fort my cousins, step brother, and I built, I wonder why my heart and arm hairs are equally electrified by nervous energy within the safety of my own living room.

My mind searches for any trace of a nightmare that could have caused such panic, but comes up short. I try to calm my breathing and my thoughts… but my internal alarm is only getting louder.

Suddenly I realize why.

I see a male figure crawling through the sliver of an opening in the hanging blankets that are my makeshift doorway. I can hear my step brother’s sleepy breathing through the cushion to my right so I know it is not him.

My mind starts racing through all of the other possibilities.

When he is less than half way into what was once my own little safe-haven turned hell in an instant… I recognize his distinct smell… like stale saliva on a thumb.

I know him. And in the moment I make a last ditch, desperate effort to assure myself there’s no reason to panic… but truth be told, my instincts clearly know better.

Remaining optimistic I ignore my intuition and fight the urge to call out. Instead, I play dead. I decide to lie there, stiff as a board, legs clenched tightly together, discreetly trying to elbow my step brother through the cushions between us. I beg, silently, over and over and over for him to please, please, please wake up and make his conscious mind be known.

He does not.

In that same moment I realize my tiny child legs are much too weak for the ravish of a beast. So I move to Plan B.

I try to roll to my side, now clawing at anything surrounding me that I can gain leverage from. I am repetitively forced to accept that I am the prey and am far too small to win this battle.

Suddenly, I begin to feel something my nine year old brain concludes to be a foot between my legs. As I’m wondering why someone would want to forcefully shove their foot into my privates I hear my teenage brother come home to his seemingly warm, safe, sleepy house.

My relief is almost instantly demolished when the aggressive intermittent rocking continues. My mind escapes to a beach where I am trapped in the surf trying to break free of the powerful crashing waves against my tiny body. I am so entrenched in this vision I have lost my breath as if I’m really drowning, the sand seems to be scraping away at my insides, and I feel an overwhelming sense of doom like something within me is dying.

I snap out of it from the excruciating pain.

Within the transition, I muster the courage to scream. I can feel my face strain, my mouth open… but nothing comes out.

Finally, after what seems like days and fleeting seconds all at once… he’s gone.

I lie there wondering if this is somehow the nightmare I woke to just moments ago. Was it real? I reach down… it was real.

I wait for any sign that it’s safe to escape, becoming more and more exhausted by the tense body I find myself sitting in. Finally, I believe he’s fallen asleep.

I inch my way out of the fort until my body is half way free. I decide to make a run for it. Across the room, up the stairs to the safety of my big brother’s arms.

Before I can even finish telling him what happened he is at my mom’s locked bedroom door banging and banging and banging and banging for what feels like a lifetime as I sit across the hall in my bedroom wishing I’d just slept in my own bed.

Finally she opens the door and listens to my brother’s retelling of what is now a pivotal part of My Story.

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I was nine years old when my cousin raped me in my own home with four other family members sleeping within feet of me. Ensuing years feeling guilty for letting it happen, for giving him the impression he would get away with it, and for whatever I did that made him want to do it to me in the first place. I also went through periods of not only being angry at myself for not killing him, but being angry at those around me for not killing him either… or, at the very least, recognizing they needed to protect me from him.

Looking back over the past 20 years since that evening, I can pinpoint specific life decisions, boughts of depression, and whatever it is that makes a victim be known to other predators due solely from this monumental life-altering experience.

Now that I am a mother of a precious, vulnerable, innocent little girl I’ve regained my strength. I’ve nurtured my dignity and self worth. I’ve realized none of it was ever my fault or anyone else who loved me for that matter.

I had to learn a very hard lesson at a much too young age. But, because of my experience my daughter has someone that much more equipped to protect her. And for that, I will forever be grateful.

For all the women and mothers out there; trust your instincts. Anyone offended by your protective and preventative measures… well, you were probably right to take those actions.

For anyone reading this who has gone through anything similar; you are not a victim. You are a survivor. Whoever harmed you took enough away from you, don’t let them take anything more.

My eyes snap open with the excitement only a purely innocent, carefree child can experience. All I can see out of my bedroom window from where my head lie on my pillow is the bare tree tops engulfed by the foggy November sky, so cold its bright white essence is nearly blinding to my unadjusted morning eyes.

I kick off the covers and leap to my feet in one fell swoop. I give the mattress two excited jumps before I hop to the ground and grab socks for my cold feet. I double check the calendar near my bedroom door… Yes! Just four more days, I’m so excit…wait… I hear voices. That’s odd, I’m usually one of the first to wake. Oh well, more people to share my countdown with!

I swing my bedroom door open and bound down the hallway when suddenly I’m hit with the unexpected, blunt force of a night train.

Somehow I just know.

I gather my bearings enough to understand the crying faces in my living room are all familiar, but the situation is foreign. Suddenly I realize I’m praying to a God I’ve never prayed to before. Begging is more accurate.

As I take role in my head for the third time desperate for Daddy to appear I see Mommy coming towards me. She swoops me up and sits me on the couch between her and my distraught brothers. I can see she’s trying to tell me something, but I can’t hear her words over my own desperate internal screaming. Please, please, please walk through the front door, Daddy. So everyone can stop crying and we can tell them it’s only four more days until my birthday.

“Daddy isn’t ever coming home again is he, Mommy?” I hear myself say. She shakes her head and all I can hear is my heart breaking.

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On November 5, 1994 Joel C. Garrett II passed out at the wheel in the wee hours of the morning. Thinking he’d slept off a night of drinking with his boss. He left behind a wife and four children; three teenage boys and one baby girl.

As we all know, whether it be positive or negative, daddy’s have an influential role in every little girl’s life, especially daddy’s little girls. I was four days shy of my seventh birthday and instantly a lifetime short of a daddy. And, although, I only have a handful of memories with him, I can say with complete confidence he is a huge part of who I am today. Because, he instilled the value of hard work, the importance of loyalty, unconditional love. I spent the first seven years of my life feeling like the most beautiful, special girl in the entire world. He not only told me those thing, but showed me every day.

This was the first of many sledgehammer blows to my innocence yet to come.