Chapter Thirteen
Building a Life
Richard and I divorced before our son was born.
On October 10, 1996, I welcomed my little boy into the world.
Even though Richard and I were no longer together, he remained a steady presence in our children's lives. The marriage had ended, but his role as a dad did not.
Then someone from my past walked back into my life.
Daniel.
The same boy I had met in the seventh-grade cafeteria.
Daniel and I started talking again, and before long we were building a relationship. I believed in him and helped put him through school so he could earn his certification to work as a reclaimer, clearing timber from mountaintops.
When he finished, he went to work. I continued my career in healthcare.
Little by little, life seemed to come together.
We bought a house. We bought land. We worked hard.
On April 17, 1998, we welcomed our son into the world.
Before that year could move forward, I experienced another loss that changed my family.
On February 21, 2004, my mother, Goldie Gipson, passed away. She was sixty years old.
Mom had suffered from asthma throughout her life. In the end, she died from respiratory failure.
Losing Mom was different from losing Dad, but it left another empty place in me.
Our relationship had gone through difficult seasons, especially after Dad died, but she was still my mother.
She was the woman who had driven me all the way to Lexington for my appointments when I was pregnant, the woman who had become Mom again when I needed her most.
By then I was grown and raising children of my own, but losing your mother has a way of reminding you that some part of you will always be somebody's child.
She was only sixty. I wasn't ready to lose her.
Life kept moving, even when grief made it feel like it shouldn't.
In 2004, Daniel and I got married.
From the outside, we seemed to have the perfect life. Friends and family would tell us, “You two started with nothing, and now look at everything you've built.”
I would smile.
But what people saw wasn't what we lived.
They saw our house, land, jobs, children, and vehicles.
They didn't see what happened after the front door closed.
Early in our relationship, I was honest with Daniel that I had always been attracted to women. I never acted on those feelings. I was committed to our relationship and our family.
Life with Daniel wasn't easy. He liked things done a certain way. There were rules for almost everything, and conflict followed when things weren't done the way he wanted.
As the years passed, I realized something painful.
I hadn't escaped one unhealthy relationship.
I had walked into another.
Still, I stayed. I told myself that when my children were older, I would leave.
Then life surprised us again.
On July 3, 2007, our daughter was born.
We hadn't planned another baby and had taken precautions, but the moment I held her, none of that mattered.
She was a blessing.
By then, motherhood had given me four children with four completely different personalities.
My oldest daughter had been a princess almost from the beginning.
As a little girl, she loved playing dress-up, and later she danced in school.
She always seemed to have friends around her because she was simply easy to love.
Even now, at thirty-one years old, I still look at her and see that same princess.
My boys played basketball and football, but some of my favorite memories with them happened far away from a gym or a field. They loved to fish.
On weekends, I would pack us a picnic and drive them down to the pond on Johnson Fork. We could spend the whole day there with our fishing poles, something to eat, and nowhere else we needed to be.
Back then, those probably felt like ordinary Saturdays. Looking back, they are some of the days I treasure most.
Those little boys grew into handsome, independent young men who are making lives of their own. Part of me can still see them standing beside that pond.
My youngest daughter seemed strong from the day she was born. Even as a little girl, she knew what she wanted, and nobody was going to tell her any different. Strong-minded, independent, and stubborn, she kept me on my toes.
As she grew older, I began to see that the stubborn streak that could test me as her mother was also part of her strength. Today she is still that same strong, independent young woman.
All four of my children found their own ways of becoming who they were meant to be. I spent years wondering whether I was doing motherhood right. Now I look at the adults they are becoming and feel proud.
I believe life will be good to my children. They deserve it.
Looking back, I spent years trying to build the perfect family.
What I truly wanted wasn't perfection.
I wanted peace.
It would take me years to understand those aren't always the same thing.