Category Archives: survival

{Reflection} From a Bed That Isn’t Mine

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I am nestled into a bed that isn’t mine tonight and my dress, well I hope it shows up. If you had told me a year ago I’d be in Biloxi spreading the message of hope, strength, and compassion I would have just laughed. Here I am and I wouldn’t trade this weekend for the world.

Its amazing where our lives take us and how much our words matter. I have always been a firm believer in speaking the truth and using that truth to empower others. The truth and speaking it is part of who I am. Sharing my story and encouraging women has become part of my journey. I realize now that a lot of newly divorced women come here looking for support and to read my blunders. Theres been quite a few and I am lucky to be apart of their journey. The journey of finding themselves again.

Some may say I am a failure married at 25 and divorced at 28. I am not a failure. One knows when there is nothing left to fight for and when to walk away. It was easy to walk away from Scott, but it hurt like hell to walk away from his beautiful 6-year-old son Nylan. I love that kid and I always will. After all this blog is for Nylan. He will always be my first child (from another mother) and I am greatful that I got to be his mom for five beautiful years.

What got me through the hard times was faith. People tell me “I wish I had your faith. You just never seem concerned. How can you leave it up to chance?” Growing up my father always told me this “if all else fails….pray.” I figure God has kept me on this planet for a reason. Lord knows he’s tried to knock me of it more than once. I think I am working on my 3rd life or something along those lines. For me bouncing back is the best part. I’ve done a lot of looking back over the past year. My second stroke anniversary is just around the corner and so is unfortunately my 29th birthday.

Looking back has allowed me to examine my failed marriage. To really look at it from a different perspective. A year ago I was so hurt and bitter that I couldn’t look with clear eyes. However time does heal all wounds and allows you to remember. Remembering that the signs were written on the wall the entire time. Realizing that my x husband is mentally ill and that there was nothing I did wrong. I harbored anger that didn’t allow me to move forward. Anger not because he cheated on me with every woman on craigs list. Anger because he abandoned me when our son died. No one should have to walk through the death of a child alone. He has told me that is his one regret. Not being man enough to get on that plane and be with me.

In truth he was never man enough. Man enough to admit his wrongs and to right the course. Yes $5,000.00 bracelets, trips, and shopping sprees are nice. But they didn’t erase the pain that I felt when I found his email wide open. Open with lies and that the driver’s seat was moved in the Prius each morning. Here I thought he was playing world of warcraft all night long. Turns out Scott was warming someone elses bed and leaving me at home alone. People say “You had everything. You were such a great couple.” Never take something at face value. Peal the layers back and you would have seen a marriage that was broken before it even started.

On the day I found out my uterine cancer was in remission I sent the ex husband an email. Finding the strength within myself to forgive him. I no longer want to be apart of him and in order to break away I had to forgive. Forgiving my ex husband was the last piece to the equation of getting myself back.

Forgiving him allowed me to be at peace with everything. I do not regret that my marriage happened and wouldn’t trade the years with Nylan. Just it wasn’t meant to be. We live, learn a little, and then we get even on Tuesdays.

Learning is what I am doing now. Putting one foot in front of the other and standing on my own. Somedays it lonely, frustrating when I can’t reach something up high, and I miss those moments in the sun. Being in a relationship is an amazing experience. It’s even better when you are with someone who totally gets you. I can say I have been in love 3 times in my life. One I divorced, One moved on, and the other took his life last summer. Not many people can say they have found love even once. I am counting myself lucky. With each relationship I have discovered new parts of myself and because of them I am on hell of a woman.

Those three men made me the woman I am today. I am greatful for the time I got with them. Because without the boys and their love, my heart would never have burst wide open. An we all know that when you believe deeply your heart is set on fire with hope. Then and only then will it burst wide open and create such a light that it will empower you to change the world.

School Supplies ~ Encouraging Native Youth to Seek College

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When I graduated from UW-Superior I was presented with an Eagle Feather. Being presented with an Eagle Feather is the highest honor a Native American can receive. The father means more to me than the paper my degree is printed on.

It’s that time of year where stores line their shelves with school supplies, back packs, and dorm room decorating supplies. For me, it’s a sign that fall is fast approaching and I need to get my motivating butt in gear. Each fall I get to meet a new group of seniors/juniors and scare them into going to college. I scare them straight, scare them smart, but mostly I use my love to scare them into discovering apart of themselves.

Native Americans are still the most unrepresented racial group in higher education. Sadly the state of the reservation educational systems are far worse and have yet to slowly get better. Is it that we forgot that these are kids too or were we to quick to assimilate them into main stream off reservations schools. The state of reservation schools are slowly getting better as more tribes realize that the investment in education is a good one. More and more native based learning programs are being developed. Language, arts, and culture are taught right along side, math, reading, and science.

Yet with all of this change and the strong movement of the NIEA we are still not seeing the rise of Native students in higher education. This is where people like myself come in. Many of these students are the first in their families to set foot into the hallowed halls of a University. They come from less than nothing and are afraid that if they leave and don’t achieve everyone will see them as a failure.

I often tell my students that the only failure is the failure to not even dream of a college education. If they never dare to dream, they will never leave the boundaries that hold them in. Boundaries are meant to be crossed and once you cross you can always look back at what you once were. Some of the kids just need someone to whisper you can do it into their ear. Others need us to hold their hands through out the whole application process and be waiting quietly in the wings on campus visitation day. Either way we do whatever it takes to get these kids, accepted, moved in, and stand by them until their degree is in hand.

It takes alot of hands to motivate Native kids, long hours, tears, and strength to show them that they are worth it. Once they know they are worth it, their dreams soar, and they become more than they ever thought possible. Tears are what I cry when they call me and say “OMG AmanadaJean I got accepted to college! Thank you Thank you, for believing in me. Because of you I am going to make something of myself and come back and make my reservation a better place.” Those moments are the moments I live for. To see the sparkle in their eye as they hold that dorm room key in their hand. I look forward to their emails detailing of classes, new friends, and ninja antics.

Reservations are changing as their populations become educated. Tribes that once depended on the outside world to help them run their Casinos, hotels, and other businesses are now depending on their own. Slowly the reservation boarders are closing and the outside higher rate is shrinking. They are depending on the new generation of educated youth to take over the businesses and run the reservations. This very shift is giving me hope that once again these sovern nations can operate independently from the outside world.

The outside world will always creep into the reservation. Students are faced with the stereotypes society placed upon them. If people looked beyond the images of HollyWood they would see the changes that have occurred. Yes, alcoholism, crime, and drug use run rapid on the reservations. People see the Casinos pop up and utter “Hell they have money what are they complaining for?” Not all tribes have successful Casinos, some are small and lie just beyond the paved roads where no one ever goes. I tell my students that they are the ones who will bust through the old image and create a new stereotype. They tell me “It’s easy for you AmandaJean, you half white.” True, I say to them. But just like you I’ve had to fight my way to the top. I never let my race stand in the way and I never let anyone put me down. I expect you to do the same, because you have the power to educate the public and to represent Indian people every day of your life. You are the ones who will change the American way of thought and you will bust the glass ceiling that was set.

Each fall we add a few more cracks to that glass ceiling when a student signs up for the ACTs and puts their name on a college application. Holes are punched through it when a student gets their degree. If we keep up at our current rate I hope to smash through it during my life time. I am patiently counting down the days until the first day of school. A day where I get to make my presence known and scare a new group of kids into go to college.

I lobby So You Don’t Have To Worry

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I never pictured myself as a lobbyist. To me a lobbyist was some old big money man making deals with congress in a back alley. That alley turns out does and doesn’t exist. Every day large companies pay top dollar for lobbyist to head to DC on their behalf. To lobby for things that will make it easier for their company, products, and procedures to succeed. Sometimes money is thrown into the ring to get people to turn a blind eye.

Blind eyes do not provide answers or keep people safe. They hinder our success and keep us from finding the so-called American Dream. I depended on the labeling of the pharmaceutical product I used. It told me only women over 35 were affected by blood clots and stroke. I did my research, the FDA said it was safe and touted it as the best invention in birth control since the pill.

Yea, that little thing called the pill. It was a big deal back in the 1960s and today a pack is found in almost every medicine cabinet. I was like you blind and unaware of how dangerous hormonal contraceptives actually are. It scares me to my core that girls as young as 11 are being prescribed birth control. None of the current studies out on the market look at or even tested the effects in girls that young. Its like driving in the dark without head lights. Labeling is starting to change. Change for the better.

Women like myself are taking DC by storm and demanding stronger warning labels, black boxes, and so forth on hormonal contraceptives. It still amazes me that some companies are still labeling the side effects for women “only over 35.” Come on now, it’s a thing and things do not know age. That magic age of 35 is crap. Tell it to me, wave 35 in front of me and I will tell you “Jesus, I was 26 you idiot. Your product almost killed me and I was under 35.”

After my pulmonary embolism the product I used changed their commercial and print ads to state “all women are it risk for blood clots/ stroke.” Jeeze thanks, that would have been nice to know before hand. This change was reactive and not proactive. We need to see more proactive measures from drug companies and not reactions based on their products failure.

Failures that happen all to often. The FDA has to many backhanded transactions occurring. What really stinks is this: The FDA knew the ring I used was deadly, yet they felt American women were ready for it. So against the warnings they approved it for US consumption. That approval was based on the $ and not on saving women’s lives. To many women have lost their lives because of the ring. To many woman have suffered blood clots, infections, and had their lives for ever changed by it.

My lung is permanently damaged. I will never run again. Trust me I try to it doesn’t work. An now my heart is wonky and it is most likely a result of the PE I suffered in 2009. Thank you big fat drug company, thank you for damaging my lung. I appreciate it. It truly is the best thing to ever happen to me. It was so much fun injecting myself with Lovenox and subjecting myself to twice weekly INR tests. CT scans are a great excuse to get out of work and wow that Angiogram was a blast. It truly was a blast.

A blast is what happens when I travel the country educating women about the dangers and side effects of hormonal contraceptives. Information is powerful and if they know the warning signs of blood clots it will keep them from enduring my fate. A fate that I wouldn’t trade for the world. Yup, it sucks that this happened to me, but now I am a lobbyist. An I will not rest until all hormonal contraceptives receive a black box warning label. I can’t change what happened to me. But I can prevent this from happening to my future daughter, to your daughter, mother, wife, sister, BFF, girlfriend, cousin, and neighbor. This is preventable. We can save lives through education and awareness.

Question: “Why Do You Blog?”

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“In this world we are only as good as our word. We must speak the truth and be who we are. If we are anything less than ourselves, anything less than true, then our words will mean nothing in the end.” ~AmandaJean

Some days I feel like I lead a double life. By day I am a passionate paralegal and by night I am simply a blogger. My blog has often been my out let to explore and share myself with the world. People often ask how can you put your health information out there, how can you share so much with people you don’t know? Its getting to the point where people are recognizing me at Target, the sky way, and other places around town. Recognition is welcome, just don’t sneak up on me and scare the crap out of me. I don’t like to be scared.

To answer the question “How can you share such personal information?” The answer is this: When I was first told I had a pulmonary embolism I scoured the internet looking for information and all I could find was info relating to the elderly. I’m not a member of AARP, I was a 27-year-old woman in search of answers. At that moment the mission of my blog changed. I realized that I could educate and promote blood clot awareness. That my struggle would be a key to someone elses survival. Once I made that post about my pulmonary embolism there was no looking back. The same goes for my miscarriage, divorce, and cancer. This……this is my life. By sharing it with you we can find common ground. Ground that we can stand on and learn together what it means to be happy, to be a survivor, and to find ourselves again.

One thing you will not find on my blog are details about my personal life, the name of the company I work for, and details of my pending litigation against a pharmaceutical company. Those are private. After all I have to keep something for myself. Truth be told, I am as single as a $1.00 bill, so I have no relationship to write about. Friends that appear in posts have given me permission to share our adventures, struggles, dreams, and blunders. I am not compensated in any way for my Local Thursday Posts and all opinions of the local companies are my own. I love to share my favorite spots in the Twin Cities and around the midwest with you. A lot of these people built their businesses from the ground up and I want to share their passion. Life is often best enjoyed with friends, traveled with strangers, and dreamed with dreamers.

Dreams are something that no one can ever take from us. This blog has led me to a lot of great places and brought a lot of awesome people in my life. I am thankful for it, yet there are days I want to turn it off. Turn it off so the world around me can be quiet. Then I am reminded that if I turned it off it would be like losing a limb. Have Bear Will travel has become a part of me. You can bet your buttons that I will be blogging when I am 80. Maybe I’ll blog about, flying cars, real life avatars, and my grand children’s hover boards. Hey, it could happen.

I have so much love for all of my readers and followers. You are what inspires me to blog. Knowing that we are growing together and changing the world one day at a time amazes me. After all “Everyone was Kung Fu Fighting, Their Fist were as fast as lightning.”

You Only Have One Heart

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Minnesota has been hit with an epic heat wave. Every time I go outside I say “Fail Whale Weather.” As many of you know I suffered a pulmonary embolism in 2009. I have gone about a year without any pain or complications in my damaged lung. Over the weekend the old pain started creeping in.

It creeped up on me like a ninja in the night. At first Tylenol took care of it and so did sleep. Yet it hit me hard on Tuesday, so hard it almost knocked the breath out of me. I was at work when the pain started getting worse and had to leave.

This was the first time I had ever gone to Park Nicollet regarding chest pain. I went to Alina before and they had a drill that included EKG, Blood work, CT, and send AmandaJean home as it was nothing. This time things were different.

Different in a good way. The staff concentrated more on my heart than my lung. Blood work was taken and it came back negative for any new clots or clots at all. Since that was negative a CT scan wasn’t needed. Thank goodness for that, those things are not fun. Still it was a mystery. My heart was beating in a normal healthy rhythm of between 60 to 100 beats per minute and then it would race to 163 or as high as 192 beats per minute. An just like that it would go back into its normal range. I don’t feel sick, I just feel like someone is squeezing my heart and have some pain. It hurts when I breathe and it feels like my heart is trying to escape with its fast beats.

Since they don’t know the cause of this crazy heart behaviour all they could do was monitor me and log the fast beats. The DR scheduled a Stress Echo Test today. That is a whole ball of wax in its self. This will show them how hard my heart is working at rest and after stress is applied i.e. exercise or medication is injected. They compare the two videos to see if there are any differences in the heart. I will not get my results until tomorrow morning. So right now I am trying my hardest to be a patient ninja. Patience is not my virtue.

Something tells me that Alina may have missed the big picture. They were always so focused on another clot and on my lung its self. I think they often forgot that hey the original and only clot blocked the blood flow to my heart. Durring that whole time my heart was in sinus tack which is an irregular heart beat. Just like it is now. This is something that’s probably be going on since 2009. Then again heart disease does run in my family. Either way for the first time I actually feel confident that I am going to get the answers I’ve been waiting for.

For me this is just another side effect of that farking birth control I used. Part of me wonders what would my life be like if I never used it. Then on the same coin, that experience has given me more strength than I could have ever dreamed of. Every thing happens for a reason and everything has a reason for happening.

Standing On The Other Side Of Divorce

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June 27th will mark 1 year since I left my x husband. Wow, really wow one year is almost here. I remember the day I left and how broken I was. The woman that pulled the prius out of the drive on Brighton trail, isn’t the woman I know today.

Honestly I was never happy in my marriage. I kept up a good act of making people think we were the perfect couple in the perfect house. The house that was supposed to make us closer turned into a 3,000 sq foot battle ground. A battle that was always raging. In truth I was dying inside. I was trying to earn the love of a man who never wanted me.

A man who shoved my dreams, my needs, and wants to the bottom of the pile. His family (brothers and parents) always came before me. Heck I wasn’t even second on his list. He cared more about his whores, than me. He gave compliments, glances, and his kindness to every woman that wasn’t his wife. He’d sneak off in the middle of the night to warm another woman’s bed, Craigslist was his play ground, and I was left alone. Left trying to make our marriage work.

Work was something he never understood. He never understood that we were suppose to be a team. That it took two to make a marriage. He was always checked out and I was left to take care of his child. A child that I didn’t want to lose. I worked hard to give Nylan a family, a home, and a life he deserved to live. I would count down the days until Nylan would arrive from Texas. Plan outings, meals, and revel in the joy he gave me. Nylan, is the sole reason I stayed.

I felt I owed it to Nylan to make our family work, so I stayed. Soon, I couldn’t take it anymore. I brought it up to the x and a huge argument exploded before my eyes. He told me ” your fat I am not attracted to you anymore. You are the only problem in our marriage.” Thats right in his eyes, I was always the problem and he never did anything wrong. I hate to say it, but his choice in women isn’t the greatest. As long as she was loose, ready and willing he’d fuck her until the sun came up. I’m sorry but your never going to find a quality woman on craigs list. I had enough.

I had nothing left to give to this man and I no longer had the strength to make things work. I was a stranger in my own body. No one has ever made me feel like he did and no one will ever belittle me again.

No one will ever rob me of my happiness, my self-worth, and my kung fu again. The day I walked out of that house, I felt a dump truck lift off my shoulders. I had hope again. My laugh was more bubbly, my smile a little brighter, and my life was mine to live.

I was free. Free from the mental and emotional abuse he laid apon me. Free to dream, to dare, and free to hope for a better day. Mainly I realized that I am worth it. That I matter in this world.

One Year Later:

I realize now that giving up law school for marriage was the DUMBEST decision I have ever made in my life. Yet, it isn’t something I would change. Because each moment of darkness we endure makes us stronger. When I first left, I didn’t realize that I had been a victim of abuse. To me abuse happens when someone throws a punch. Abuse in a marriage takes many forms, for me it was mental and emotional. With the help of my family, friends, and one hell of a therapist I came out on the other side. I cried the first time that someone told me I mattered. It had been five long years since I had heard the words “You matter to me.”

Knowing that I matter heals some of the pain and brings me comfort on quiet nights. The first few months were rough, I was trying desperately to find a rhythm and clinging to anything I could grasp. Slowly I found the rhythm and let go of the safety net. The constant need to be in contact with friends dwindled. Long gone are the months of 8,000 text messages. They have been replaced with independence and the ability to just be. To be me, without my black berry glued to my hand. My hands actually hold other things now. An my friends have grown with me.

We had to learn together. They had to realize that a lack of a text, tweet, or message doesn’t mean I’m dead. In reality I can’t blame them for being concerned, after all I did almost die on my friends and family. They know that I love them and that this is how the pre-marriage AmandaJean used to be.

That I am back, the sassy, stubborn, big-hearted, independent take no bull shit from anyone AmandaJean is back. I have dabbled in dating. Dating provides me with more blunders than successes. I am still single and at the end of the day I am ok with that.

The x husband would tell me “bear you’ll never make it on your own.” Well I’ve got a roof over my head, my bills are paid, the muppet has food in his bowl and my bank account is in the positive.

Fuck you Scott! I made it!

Infertility = A Broken Dream with Options

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Ever since I can remember I’ve always had this feeling that I would never have my own children. As a little girl I was obsessed with cabbage patch kids and pound puppies because you could adopt them.

After my miscarriage my cycle never returned to normal. In which the doctors told me that it was normal and would take sometime to balance out. In February I had a bunch of test done, an ultra sound, and some other things. The results came back a few weeks later, I never went in to find out. Part of me knew it wasn’t good. So I just put it off.

Put it off until last week, sitting in a waiting room full of new moms glowing with pride and some looked like they were going to burst. I felt a tug and some how knew, that this would never be in my cards. Is it just me or are exam rooms always freezing. The doctor he came in and looked at me with sadness. He said ” I’m Sorry that I have no good news for you today. ” Swallowing hard I looked at him and said “Give it to me straight, no sugar-coating please.” He did just that, he flat-out said “I’m sorry but you will never carry a child.” I could feel the tears welling in my eyes, it took everything in me not to let them fall. The explanations were given, the odds were not in my favor, and the only child I would ever carry is in heaven. I told the doctor “I feel cheated and like someone robbed me of my options.” He just put his hand on my knee and said “You can always adopt or have a surrogate carry for you.” Looking blankly out the window, I told him ” I know, I know.”

My appointment was over, in a matter of 45 minutes my dream was crushed, ripped in two, and stomped on. I felt like the wind was sucked out of me and that I was some how a terrible woman. As I put the prius into drive, the tears they finally came rolling down. All I could think of was running, running far away, that some how it was all a dream. It wasn’t a dream. I did what any woman would. I fixed my make up and went into work, I acted like nothing had changed, yet on the inside I was crushed.

Crushed that this was my new normal. A life without fertility. I mourned, got mad, and then realized there’s a whole world out there waiting. I am not yet at a place in my life where I am ready to adopt or interview surrogates. So I am going to take time for me and finally put myself first. Along with many dreams that I put on hold, a big dream was to join the peace corps. Someone said “your only running away from your infertility, spending 27 months abroad isn’t going to make the problem go away.’ I’m not looking to erase the problem, I have to live with a no good rejected uterus every day, I can’t escape it and it , it can’t escape me.

I let my mind wonder as I walked around Calhoun. Actually wonder to the hmm what would life be like without children place. I could 1. travel a ton, 2. go to law school, pass the bar and become one heck of a lawyer, 3. join the peace corps, 4. I could have a flexible schedule. Then I thought, hmm I am 28 and since my uterus is all ready broken, I have no biological clock to worry about. Maybe when I am 40 I will think about adoption, yup when I am 40 I will maybe adopt. Slowly I am allowing my mind to travel to the life without children place and at first it was scary, but now its a cooling calm.

A calm that I am ok with, truly and honestly I am ok with it. One friend said to me: “Um AmandaJean you’re not datable anymore.” looking puzzled I asked “how the heck is that.” Her response “men like women who can have their babies and well you can’t.” Umm I am pretty sure I can find someone who doesn’t wants kids, can’t have them, or thinks adoption is an option. I am not worried one bit, heck marriage is for the birds, I’ve been down that road once and it didn’t go well. Plus I don’t need a man or a child to define who I am, I am a woman, one heck of a woman and that comforts me.

The Other Shoe Dropped

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I’ve come to know in my 28 years on this planet that life never goes smoothly. Just when things are falling into place and the feelings of normal set in. A curve ball comes crashing through.

One day I am perfectly fine and dandy. The next it can be turbulent and filled with the unknown. I should be use to this by now. As a person living with a Kidney disease you never know what you are going to wake up to and how you will feel. Most days go by without incident or thought, then there are the days like Monday.

Monday, brought the what ifs back. Sitting at Park Nicollet, I knew what was wrong and how it needed to be fixed. The doctor he just looked at me and said its bad. Six hours later I walked out of there with a sore arm and back from the injection sites, an rx for more antibiotics and vicodin. He advised me to rest as much as possible and to push the fluids through.

This is my normal, a normal I’ve come to love and hate. It is what it is, I can’t change the hand I was dealt nor will my disease magically disappear. For me, it has made me humble and reminds me that each day that I wake up healthy is truly a gift.

Speck of Faith In My Little Toe

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Sometimes I wake up cursing and wishing that I could have my old pre-pulminary embolism life back. It’s a wasteful wish, I know, but part of me still hopes I will return to the old me.

The me who used to run fast and far with her dog at her side. One who didn’t have to calculate how much vitamin K was in her food, or pay attention to odd feelings in her chest. There are days where I just want to drop the ball, chuck the aspirin in the can, and run far.

Run far away. Yet, its days like this I reach deep within to pull out any speck of faith I have left. It usually hides in my little toe, that last speck of faith. I use it to get up, to move, and get through my day. Winter is over thank God!

Winters cool crisp air ripped through my lung like a knife cutting butter. Every breath I took on those bitter days was filled with pain. They say spring is going to arrive any day now. Springs air is cool, moist and thick, it feels like I have to gulp the air in and push it down. I am reminded, that I shouldn’t complain because the alternative to this is death. I can consider my gulps, my pain, and this crazy lung as a badge of honor. Honor, that I wear tightly wrapped around my heart and proclaim to all that I am a survivor through and through.

Surviving isn’t a method or a skill, it is something you earn. You chart your own course, create your own plan, and live with faith so strong it can set your heart on fire. I hug tighter, laugh more often, listen a little longer, and love harder.

This experience has made me aware that little things in life don’t matter, it’s the moments that count and the journey that’s worth taking. I used to be obssed with the destination, I saw things only one way and now I muddle my way through. It may take me longer to get there, but at least I will have a story to share.

So this morning as the pain filled my chest and the muppet scampered before me, I reached into my little toe, pulled out that speck of faith and got up. Got up, washed down a gazillion vitamins, pills, and my all coveted life saver the aspirin. As long as I keep moving and don’t lose faith I will win the battle and conquer the war.

April Showers Bring Memories

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It’s funny how a scent, a song, or a simple word can send memories crashing through. Tomorrow will be April. A month filled with showers, sun, and warm days. Yet this month is weighted with memories.

If I were still married April 3rd would be a night of dinner, wine, celebrated love and laughter. That was the day I met my x husband, it would be 6 years on Sunday. Six years ago he walked across the campus parking lot and into my life. Part of me wishes I could say it was all terribly bad, but it wasn’t. We had our moments and our days in the sun. He probably won’t give April 3rd much thought this Sunday, or maybe he will. For me, it will just be another day on the Calender, yet it will always hold a place in time.

April 9th will be a day I will always remember, that is the day I found out I was pregnant. At first i thought it was a joke and then the words pregnant appeared over and over again on the seven tests I took. It was real all right. That night the x was beaming and couldn’t contain his excitement for our pending joy. Scott would talk to my stomach and kiss it Good Night, Good Morning, and Good Afternoon. That night we went out to celebrate at one of our usual spots and when the waitress asked if I wanted my usual glass of wine. He piped up ” No wine for her, she’s pregnant!” The waitress gushed and congratulated us both. Our families were filled with hope and exploding with joy for their new grandchild. Never during that time did I think God would burst our bubble filled with joy. Not even once did I dare to think it could all fade away. Yet it did, it did in deed.

As a child my mom told me that rain, just wasn’t rain. That it was magical, that the rain was actually tears from heaven. That some angels were having a bad day or they were sad because God Brought someone home. That if I embraced it, danced in it, and jumped in the puddles I could feel the angles love. April, bring on your rain……I am ready to dance in it, laugh in it, stomp, frolic, and embrace the tears of heaven.