My Life As A Child Survivor

I've been thinking a lot lately about my life and why I am the person I am today. There are few who know the story, and fewer still who know of the impact this left on my life. And only I know right now the reasons.

Being the child of someone who has fought against cancer and lost isn't something people would categorize me as. Not everyone knows of the family life before the one they see today. When they find out, they are amazed that it's true. You see, I have two mothers. One gave birth to me, but died and the other raised me and lives still.

My mother was born September 9, 1958. She died the day after Christmas, I was 13 months old. Her breast cancer spread to her other organs, the doctors tried everything and nothing worked. My mother and father loved each other very much, as well as my brother and me. These are the facts.

But this is what I know. For a really long time I didn't know I could talk about my mother. I felt like she was taboo. My dad had remarried and we had a different family. But it was still a family, and that was good. I had a mother, a sister, and another brother. But I still struggled.

It took me a really long time to  work out my feelings about my mother. It wasn't easy, In fact, it was hard and often hurt, or woke up other hurts that I had suppressed.

One thing that always bothered me was when I said that I lost my birth mother when I just over a year, I felt like people didn't see it as a loss. I was too young, I didn't remember her. And yet, I felt like I was missing a piece of myself.

One very real thing for me that I have from a parent dying of cancer is the fear of it. Just the word cancer chills me to my very core. I am afraid of dying from it, from leaving my children like my brother and I were left. Also, I am terrified of anyone else leaving me, especially family. This can make life very hard to adjust to. {Especially when my parents are moving to Texas today.} I am afraid of being left behind, of being lost and alone. This often drives my mom nuts because I never leave her alone when I am home from school, and tend to follow her around.

These are wounds that I have picked at for years. Never letting the scabs heal. They have been aggravated, and inflamed with different experiences I have had in my life. But I knew I needed to let those wounds heal.

IN SWEET MEMORY
TRUDY KAY WELLS
SEPT. 9, 1958 - DEC. 26, 1991

I finally got the courage to visit her. It wasn't easy. I cried a gallon of tears. But I went. And I talked to her. I know it's just the place were her body was laid to rest from her pain and suffering, but she was like my unicorn. Something I believed in, but didn't know really existed. And suddenly, there she was, my mother.

It was a warm day. I got there and the sun started to get low in the sky. It was a beautiful place, with a nice birch tree and a JC Penny's close by. I stayed for over an hour, tracing the words, her name. It was a sacred experience for me.

But this is what I now know:
1) My mother loves me and she gave up her health and eventually her life, for me
2) I am my parents treasure - even though I can be a pain in the butt a lot of the time
3) I am so grateful for my belief in eternal families
4) I have been so blessed with two mothers -  both of whom want me an immeasurable amount and love me even more
5) Life isn't perfect, but it is in the hands of the Master, our Lord and He has a plan for each of us
6) I am stronger than I ever thought possible
7) I don't have any missing pieces - just undiscovered parts
8) That I can do anything

About a year ago, I was watching a Love Saga movie (It's based off of a book series and produced by Hallmark, and yes I cried). But a father (Clark) and his daughter (Missy) lose their wife and mother. But due to happenstance, Clark falls in love with a recent widow ( Marty). Years later, Missy loses her husband and she goes to her father for comfort and he says,

"When you love someone,
that love doesn't die when they do.
That stays in our hearts forever.
But we do have to say good-bye
to the life we shared with them.
Go on with a new life, a chance at happiness."

So for me, I carry my mother in my heart always. She is a part of me, she is the reason I why I want an eternal family that I will one day create with my spouse. She is the reason why I try so hard at having a relationship with her son, my brother. She is the reason why I have always been so intense about family and how important it is, and why I want to help other families out there. She is the reason why I have so much respect and love for the woman my dad married after her. The woman who has raised me and loved me as her own. Who has taught me what being a mother is, and that's not just about blood. They are both the reason, and a part, of who I am today.

"FAMILY: Where life begins... And love never ends"

Long time gone!

Oh buddy! It has been a long time since I last posted something on here. I feel a little guilty about that. But I am trying to be better - and be more creative with my life!

I just reread my first post... Golly, that was hard. I may not have documented it here on my blog, but I have made progress in the change department. Some have been more subtle than others, but I feel those words are truer now than they were then.

Over the course of the next couple of weeks I am going to talk about some changes that I have made and am going to make!

I hope you stick around! :)

Hello World!

At the beginning of the New Year everyone starts making plans to change, to change something or everything about themselves.

Change. It's a word that scares me more than anything in the world. My blood runs cold just thinking about it. Why you ask am I afraid of change? Because of failure.

One of life's great mysteries to me is that of how people change, grow, become a better person.

In 2012, I made a goal to take chances, more specifically to take chances with my love life. Those who know me know that when it comes to the member of the opposite sex I am painfully socially awkward. But I ended up taking a risk.

For a long time I felt that I was in love with a friend. I basically thought that he was the greatest thing since sliced bread, and what was even better was that he paid attention to me. He seemed to care, to be interested, he wanted to talk to me, and he wanted to know what I thought. When things looked like they were headed towards "serious-town", that's when everything fell apart. He didn't care for me that way, but he didn't mind that I did. And he used me to boost his own self-confidence.

That was a huge hit to my already low self-esteem. But it's when he got a girlfriend that it really hit home that he would never be with me.

Needless to say, I have been unhappy. I have moments where I feel invisible, unimportant, worthless, unwanted. And in all of these self-pitying, wallowing nights one thing is true: I can change.

W.M. Lewis said "The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it." When I was a little girl all I dreamt about was being a wife and a mother. And with that boy I thought I could see that dream coming true, and then it was all ripped away with four little words "I don't love you." And I had stopped living. I was waiting, waiting for him to ride off with me into the sunset.

It isn't the biggest tragedy in the world. There have been broken hearts before and after mine, but it is MY broken heart. But...

This is my life as someone who is visible, important, full of self-worth, and very much wanted. Someone who is happy.