Boldly Unbroken

I married my third husband April 9, 2006. We had dated exactly 2 years before we married. Our wedding day is when I met the person that he really was. The next 10 years had its ups and downs. It came in waves like water in the ocean. The high points made me feel like I was on top of the world while the low’s made me feel as if I was drowning. Although we had talked about divorce numerous times we never followed through with it. After breast cancer treatment was completed in 2012; it worsened. My husband told me every day how crazy I was, how unattractive I was, that I was mean and deceitful. He told me that I had no purpose and was wasting his time, energy and space on earth. He wished a miserable life and even death upon me. He made physical threats although his words hurt me more than any physical pain ever could. His grown children even jumped on the bandwagon and treated me the same way. Fast forward to 2015. Throughout the years we’d been married,    I tried so ha

As a child I remember visiting my grandparents in Plantersville, AL., quite often. Pawpaw had worked in the coal mines but they were farmers in every sense of the word.  Pawpaw built their house himself and memaw birthed a few of her babies there. Their gardens flourished from year to year. Chickens, goats, cattle, you name it, it was there. I remember pawpaw showing me how to milk the cows and memaw running me out of the chicken coop. I remember walking the dirt roads picking blackberries and muscadines for pawpaw to make his wine. Memaw was taller than pawpaw and larger than him, too. He would roll his own cigarettes and she would dip her snuff. She could spit from the rocking chair of their front porch directly into a can at the bottom of the steps, farther than any man I have ever known, even to this day. They loved their card games and memaw took pride in her doll making. We weren’t allowed in their living room because of it, but we would always sneak

I’m that friend you can call in the middle of the night if you can’t sleep. I’m that friend that will laugh when you fall after making sure you’re okay, first. I’m also the kind of friend that can go weeks, months or years without seeing or talking to you and pick up where we left off when we see each other again. I had a best friend for over 20 years that I shared absolutely everything with and kept no secrets from. When we were neighbors we talked every day. Then she moved to another county and we talked at least every week. Even during the toughest times that the both of us would have we made sure we connected somehow. That’s just what we did because that’s who we were. I have never in my life had a more loyal relationship where I could be completely transparent without being judged. We had an unconditional love for one another. Or so I thought. Our friendship came to a screeching halt when we took a vacation to Las Vegas after we canceled a cruise due

I was a scared 18-year-old when I gave birth to my 8 lb. 4 oz., healthy, happy and beautiful baby boy. I had known his biological father only a year before I became pregnant. We broke up the summer before our senior year of high school before I even knew I was pregnant and he was back with the girl he dated before me. He could care less that I was pregnant with his child. I referred to him as the “sperm donor“, because actually, he was nothing more than that. I never kept secrets from my son and always let him know who his sperm donor was but could never explain to him why the man had abandoned us. When my son was six years old, I married the man who would give us both his last name. Ironically, they shared first names as well. He was an excellent father and taught my son all the right things he needed to know about life. We knew at some point our son would probably want to meet his sperm donor and that is exactly what he asked for his senior year. So, we made that hap