“A friend asked, ‘What has kept you married for 42 years?’ The last 5 decades have gone by in the blink of any eye. I could see by the look in my husband’s eyes what his answer would be.”
‘My sister’s back in town, newly divorced. You should give her a call.’ I heard a knock. He looked up and smiled. I thought, ‘One day, I’ll marry this man.’ I didn’t tell him. Why ruin the moment?’
‘Everyone wants a Prince Charming. That’s what I thought I found. I was head over heels and got pregnant within a few months. I ignored the warning signs.’
“Things started to change very rapidly. My possessions were stolen, our new baby gifts pawned, my hard-earned money taken. I only knew he was alive when I would see him post Craigslist ads seeking drugs. There was no turning back.”
‘I blurt out, ‘I want the surgery.’ I’ll never forget the look on his face. What kind of patient asks for a major life changing surgery? I kept replaying the conversation my mother and I had.’
“My mother was my best friend and I couldn’t accept she would be gone soon. I refused to discuss it with her until one day she said to me ‘You can ask me anything you want.’ That was all it took.”
Dear Parents, Thank You For Guiding Me Through Life’s Hardest Moments
“I’m sure somewhere in my teenage heart I was thinking… game on. Then things went from bad to worse . I promptly did what any teenage girl would do… burst into inconsolable sobs by my locker in the hallway of our high school.”
‘They said your child was being very loud. You knew what I was going to ask. You saw the table I just spoke to pointing at you. I got to your table and you looked at me.’
“I know what I was supposed to say when I went to your table. I was supposed to politely tell you to please not have your daughter yell. I was supposed to offer to move you to another area. I was supposed to offend you by not offending you… I did not do any of that.”
‘There was always the nagging in the back of my head telling me I was gay. About four years into our marriage my thoughts crept back up. I illogically came up with a solution. Have a kid.’
“Finally a few weeks later I told my wife we needed to talk. After putting my daughter to bed I sat down with her and told her I had something to confess.”
‘After visiting our daughter in the hospital I came home to find all his stuff gone. The cat was out of the bag. Our daughter was born at 28 weeks and that’s when the real problems set in.’
”There were times I would say to him ‘Is that how you speak to the mother of your child?’ He threatened to get someone to ‘shoot me in my face.”
‘Mom, I made a mistake.’ My boyfriend left me on the side of the road, a burning sensation on my face.’: Young woman escapes abuser, ‘I only survived for my child, but now I survive for myself’
“While I was asleep, he took my phone and began browsing through my messages. I awoke to his voice. ‘Who is this guy you’ve been texting?’ He looked angry. ‘That’s just my friend,’ I explained. ‘Well, don’t text back. You’re flirting with him by texting back.’ I tried once more to defend myself, but ended up pinned down for hours while I sobbed and begged for him to let me go.”
‘I was pregnant with a little boy and a little girl after a decade of trauma. I limped out of his house and drove home over 100 miles away with $20 in my pocket.’
“A handsome former-classmate wrote me on Facebook: ‘I had a dream about you.’ I was thirty four weeks pregnant when my water spontaneously broke and suddenly the pain and trauma resurfaced. Were my babies okay?”
‘Where is Gabriel?’ I remember screaming my boyfriend’s name ‘Gabriel!’ but no reply. My sister found me and said, ‘You are okay, they are coming to help you’ that night was the most confusing and heartbreaking of my life.’
“I saw myself laying in the grass listening to my sister screaming my name looking for me. ‘Marcela! Marcela! I remember her screaming, ‘I’m here but I cannot move!’”