Real life vs. Fiction

Have you ever felt like you were watching your life on a giant movie screen from a spectator seat located high up in the nosebleed section of the world somewhere? When I think back on some of the chapters in my life it feels as if those things didn't really happen to me, but rather they happened to a character in a Danielle Steel novel I'd once read. When I was nineteen I moved to Memphis, Tennessee. One month before I turned 21 I married a man I'd met just six weeks earlier! Not a terribly smart move.

I was married to that man for 2 1/2 very tumultuous and surreal years. The challenges I faced during those thirty months could give Danielle Steel enough material for six novels! He was addicted to cocaine and as a result I survived financial battles, scary encounters with scary people, physical, mental, and emotional abuse, and even spiritual oppression. There were definitely bright moments of hope, however, the brightest of which was the birth of my first child.

The first few months after our son was born were happy and I had hoped the addictions and fights were behind us. But, the drug abuse continued and when our baby was seven months old his father left our apartment and I never saw him again. If it wasn't for the joys and struggles of raising my son, I might have forgotten that the marriage had ever happened at all. After all I went on to marry again, have two move children, and live a new life!

A couple of days ago my son, now 23, received a message on his MySpace page that came from his birth father. This, for me, is a reminder that my story was not one I'd read about in a dusty old novel, but rather was one I'd actually lived. It's been 22 1/2 years since the day he walked out of our apartment and I can't possibly know how time has changed the man who was once my husband. I pray for my son's sake that he is a better man since the last thing my son needs now is any kind of negative influence in his life.

So...a new chapter has begun. Stay tuned Danielle Steel fans :)

Good-bye Rose

Rose died today. And so another chapter of life closes and a new one begins. For Rose's wonderful husband and her three beautiful children the rest of their story will be written without Rose by their side. She invested all her heart and soul into Mac, Luke, Chelsea, and Jeremy so I know they'll always have her with them.

Thank you Rose for the encouragement you gave me. I'll never forget those days so long ago - sweating together at the gym, sharing kind words over coffee, singing together in choir, and swapping clothes between our toddlers. You had the most beautiful smile in the whole world!