I am a thirty-eight-year-old, single mother of two great children. I have been struggling to receive a college education since I was 16-years-old. I began my “adult life” at the tender age of fourteen when my older brother helped me in my fight to win emancipation from my mother and her new husband. Soon after they were married, my step-brother began forcing him self on me almost immediately. When I went to my mother for help, she responded by telling me to “not mess this good thing up”.
I began working a full-time job at the Sonic as well as going to High School. I met my first husband while working there. He was twenty-one-years-old when we decided to marry; I was barely sixteen. I became pregnant with my son within months after we were married so my husband felt it would be better for me, and the baby, to attend a private school that would allow me to graduate early if I could make the grades; which I did.
My first real experience with death came upon me when I was in the delivery room. Somehow, and quite suddenly, toxemia set in causing my baby's heart to stop. He actually died (at least that's what it seemed like to me) on eight different occasions during delivery. While he was still in the womb, the doctors had to “jump-start” his heart eight different times. They feared the worse and tried to prepare me for what could be the most devastating event in my life. Everyone in the room was praying but I was begging my Heavenly Father to spare my precious baby and take me instead. My Father listened to my pleas and granted my prayer (half of it anyways). Not only did he spare my life but he also allowed my baby boy to bless my life and live. He actually came out waving to me when he made his grand entrance on that hot August day!
Before my seventeenth birthday, I had my High School diploma, a brand new beautiful baby boy, enrolled in the local community college, and received a promotion at my job to Assistant Manager. Life was everything I had hoped for and then some! At least it was for a short while. Within two years I would mis-carry three times; one at three months, one at four months, and the last one at eight and a half months. Needless to say, this put a huge strain on my marriage especially since my doctor could give us no apparent reason as to why; divorce followed soon after.
I tried to stay positive mainly for my son's sake but depression found its way in and ultimately took over the next year of our lives. My grades suffered tremendously to the point that I had to drop out. My boss even suggested, strongly, that I take a leave of absence and go to counseling before I lost all sense of reality. This, in the end, helped me more than I ever thought it would, but at first, I felt like no one could ever understand what was going through my mind every second of the day. I wanted to be a kid again. I longed to be in my mother's arms so she could kiss it all away. Why was this happening to me? What did I do to deserve all of this turmoil? I soon came to the realization, with the help of a therapist, that everything (good or bad) happens for a reason and we must endure it to be able to become better and stronger than we ever were before. At that time in my life, I focused my every being on my son because I knew, no matter what; he would always love me and would never leave me for any reason.
I met my second husband by the time I was twenty-years-old; within six months after we began dating, we were married. Seven months after my twenty-first birthday, I gave birth to my daughter. During my pregnancy, I was diagnosed with cervical cancer. I finally understood why I had mis-carried three babies. My doctor gave me a choice; my life or my baby's life but I could not have both. I refused to believe him. There was absolutely no way that I would ever choose to terminate my pregnancy or even accept that my baby would not survive. This was not going to happen again. I fought my doctor throughout those nine months and even though it was “touchy” in delivery, I won that battle. I survived and so did my miracle, little, baby girl. Two days after giving birth, however, I was rushed to emergency surgery; the cancer was trying to take over causing me to hemorrhage which also caused me to go into a coma. I woke up from the coma two weeks later and held my baby for the first time. My husband then told me that he gave my doctor permission to do a full hysterectomy on me to try to stop the cancer and save my life. Over the next five years, I would battle breast cancer (received three lumpectomies), pancreatic cancer, skin cancer, and bone cancer. By the year 2003, I was given six months to live. I refused to accept that diagnosis as well.
I have been divorced, again, for over eleven years now. It has been just me and my kids against the world. I have always made certain that they had everything I did not as a child (mainly a childhood) and stressed the importance of an education. I have had to keep two full-time jobs so that we could live without asking for help from anyone or any agency. Both of my kids are now in college and I so desperately want to pursue my own dreams that had to be put on hold for so many years. I want to become a Juvenile Officer and in order to do so, I need to go back to college and get my Criminal Justice degree. The children are our future and over the year's I have seen many kids just being “thrown away” or locked up in detention centers just so no one has to deal with them. I can relate to these kids and how they feel for I was once them. I want to, and know I can, make a difference in their lives. I know that I will not be able to “save” all of them but if I save just one at a time from the heartache that I once endured, that's priceless.
I have overcome a great deal of pain just to be where I am today. I am not ready to give up. I have not fulfilled my dream of receiving my college degree that will enable me to work with kids that are headed down the very road I traveled so many years ago. I have been able to secure a few scholarships that are giving me the chance to make my dream a reality. So I suppose that things really do happen for a reason. The reason, I believe, that I had to endure so much pain in my lifetime is to make me appreciate more everything that God has so graciously blessed me with so that I would fight hard to keep it and to have the knowledge to help others do the same.
