My Life Story ~ The Beginnings...

I was a very imaginative little girl growing up. Young amazing years of endless possibilities. With no responsibilities and an innocent hopeful look on my immediate surroundings. The questions that held for the day were that of which tree I would climb? Or what kind of animal should I draw?
My life was simple, pure, and every girl’s dream.
I grew up on a rural ranch in a town full of life, placed in the perfect spot which my mother and father chose. A beautiful home, built by my father for a family of 6. Dogs, cats and horses grazed the 20 acre dream.
It was perfect. It was my life.

I had 3 older sisters. All of us roughly 2 years apart. I became accustomed to hand-me-downs and proudly owned it. We were as normal siblings were – fighting, laughing, playing, hating, loving. There was one time in particular which I remember so perfectly. I remember the big tree in our backyard, behind our swing set for 4. The day was as cloudy and gray as it normally was in the great state of Washington. I peered on my tippy-toes out the large horizontal back window of our home which overlooked the entire yard and I noticed my sisters and our then neighbors, Kami and Casey Collins, the same age as 2 of my sisters, standing together and laughing by the big tree. I ran outside in excitement, wanting to play hide-and-seek. A grin on my face and a skip or two down to the group. Being the naïve, gullible little girl I was, I said bright eyed to them, “Want to play hide and seek?” They all said in unison, and to my surprise, “Sure! You count and we’ll hide.” Two of my sisters were giggling behind their hands, nudging each other and smirking. I then turned my back to them, closed my eyes and began to count. From my vague remembrance, I counted to 20 before realizing they didn’t go to hide, they had all left me there, alone. At that moment I came to my 5 year old senses, they lied to me.

I remember one fun year, I was 10. I was at my church summer camp, which always seemed to be a week too short. Two dorm leaders, I can’t recall their names or what they looked like, just two girls either in their late teens or early 20’s. They shared scriptures with us which I still look up every now and again. But what I remember most is how they made me feel. One afternoon, they decided to do make-overs on all the girls in our dorm, including myself. I was so excited! I thought to myself, They were going to make me pretty! They gathered their supplies, brushes, hair spray, make-up caboodles in tow. They sat and girls lined up, one by one. They spent at least 15 minutes on each young girl, making their hair just-right, their make-up just-perfect. I patiently waited my turn. When it was my time, I stepped forward, the pretty dorm leader swiped a couple rows of hot pink blush on my cheeks, I closed my eyes, waiting for the eye shadow like the other girls, yet, instead, she then told me to step aside. The other girls in my dorm were skinnier and obviously prettier by society’s standards. So I just thought to myself – I was the ugly one and nothing, not even make up could fix me.

Now an 11 year old, I was invited to my best friend, Jenny’s birthday party at the roller-rink in town. It was the hot-spot at that time. All the cool kids went there for any occasion. I have no other memories of the place other than this one where I unfortunately remember the first boy who made me feel worthless. We were all gathered together, ready for a group photo when the boy, who was told to stand next to me for the picture, looked at me with a look of disgust in his eyes which showed not so gently on his pale skin, said blatantly, “Ew” right to my face. I don’t remember ever skating, even though I have plenty of pictures showing me there for many years, I don’t remember what I got Jenny for her birthday, I just remember how that stupid little boy made me feel. Worthless.

That and many other incidences proved it’s way into my head and my personality, that the way I looked was unacceptable and no one, besides my own mother, could love a face like mine. It wasn’t hideous, it wasn’t scarred, my teeth were somewhat straight, besides an odd one which was later fixed with a year of a brace-face image in the mirror. I was a chubby girl who didn’t do her hair or care about make-up until the age of 14. I thought people were supposed to like you the way you are and how you love, not by the way you looked or how you styled your hair, or the very size of your jeans. It didn’t make sense to me. It infuriated me. Little did I know that those words and that image of myself would play the biggest role in my life. It would lead my path into destruction and pain. If I knew then what I know now, I would have had a few words with those leaders of the dorm, and the immature little boy at the roller-rink, but I would much rather talk to my old self and say that God loves me the way I am. I don’t have to prove myself to anyone. I am perfect, just the way he made me.
My mother is a Chicago born, Christian oriented woman. With a strong sense of life and struggles. I have always looked up to her and what she has had to endure. She had gone through numerous breast cancer treatments all throughout my growing up. She lost her hair and purchased long blonde wigs and always wore them around me when I was little so not to scare me with her very pale, hairless dome. I was five when the doctors told her she had six months to live. Her, being the amazing mother that she is, overcame her breast cancer and proved the doctors wrong.

Later, down the road, she had a fall and twisted her arm (at her popular Christian church which she attended every Sunday since before I was born) which became so painful for her, she scheduled a doctor’s appointment. She received the test results, not long after, revealing she had a large grapefruit sized tumor in her abdomen. My sisters and I drove her to the hospital in Tacoma, not far from where we lived and the doctor’s removed the grapefruit only to find a mass in her throat which could not be removed. The doctors claimed it was as if there was a piece of chewed gum stuck in the middle of a ball of yarn. There was no hope in removing the mass. Just to let it sit and treat her every 6 months for the cancer to stay at bay. I still remember as she lay helpless in her light blue hospital gown after the surgery, I watched as the medication made her mumble odd words and flap her arms slowly about, as if they were a heavy rubber. She still to this day has her 6 month treatment to keep the mass from growing in her throat and to her vocal chords. But it doesn’t seem to phase her. She just gets right back on her horse and keeps riding on with life. That’s the kind of woman she’s always been to me. She can move mountains or at least attempt, and believes she can.

Years passed, life had played on. We moved into the cities after going bankrupt. My dad helped us all choose the new house. Built in the 1960’s, definitely not any acreage, but still just as perfect for the six of us. My mom had a business, teaching a class where parents learn how to home school their children. I had always gone with, out of town, wherever they had to go for the three days that it lasts, but for some reason, this one time, I decided to feel independent and not tag along. I was 13 and wanted to stay at my friend Jenny’s house while they were gone. I didn’t even get out of bed to say goodbye the morning they left. My mom came into my room, kissed my forehead and said, “We’re leaving now, goodbye, be good.” I thought nothing of this ever-occurring trip, so I said bye and rolled over only to fall back asleep, awaiting for my own urge to get up and ready for the day.

Little did I know, that day would be the last time I would see my father and true, perfect smiles on my family’s faces.

My friend Jenny and her mom picked me up from my home and drove us to her quaint little one story house. It was practically my second home being that Jenny was my only friend at the time and we were inseparable. We watched a movie that night, we both missed the ending because of our ability to fall asleep so easily, her in the recliner, me on the large sofa. It was almost three in the morning when I heard her home phone ring. Jenny was still asleep in the dark blue recliner across from me, which we playfully always fought over. I heard her mom answer the phone after what seemed like 15 rings where every chirp of the phone made my head spin with alertness and a horrible, sickening feeling that something was wrong. I thought to myself, Who would be calling that many times at this time at night? But I somehow knew deep down the reason why. I lay there, somehow knowing the future, it was so strong, I tried to hold back the feeling but it ached in my head, knowing my world would be crashing down at any moment. I knew what the phone call was about… I just knew it… My dad had died. I waited a few moments until I heard the creaks in the floor of the hallway as Jenny’s mom drew nearer to the couch where I pretended to be sleeping. She nudged my shoulder lightly, I opened my eyes and looked straight into her face, tears swelling in her eyes, she asked me to sit up, I did. By then, Jenny realized that her mom and I were awake and, staying quiet, Jenny sat up as well. Her mom sat softly to the right of me and looked me in the eyes and said, “Sweetie, this is the hardest thing I’ll ever have to say,… your daddy died.”
Instantly, the room faded, it was now nothing but a dull, colorless smudge in the waterfall eruption of tears. It was as if all of my emotions were kept locked in a dungeon my whole life and had chose that very moment to be let loose.

The half hour ride back to my house felt like an eternity. As Jenny’s mom was our chauffeur, Jenny cried with me in the backseat of the little four-door, dark green, Camry. It was all feeling like a horrible dream that was nothing like the kind of pain and horror we are all used to in our nightmares, no, but worse. And so very real.

During the car ride, I had no recollection of what time it was, but it must have been no later than four a.m. when we pulled up into the drive way of my beautiful home, fruit trees, pool and tennis court in the back. Yet none of that mattered now. All I could think was how my life was going to be without my daddy. Only one small lamp lit the entire front living room where my whole family sat. Still. Quiet. Colorless, motionless and eyes as wet as the roads of Olympia on a spring morning. I walked through the front door, with Jenny at my side, helping me as if I were a one-year-old who had just learned how to use my legs. I sat down on a lonely chair, all three of my sisters and my mom all occupying chairs alone. Everyone looked as if they were dead themselves. No life. No expressions. In pure shock.

I don’t remember a single moment after that. Walking up the stairs to my bedroom or even changing clothes, perhaps I was still in PJ’s? I guess I’ll never know, but what rings truer than anything else that happened that night was the most painful noise I’ve ever heard in my life. I slept in a room just one door down the hall from my parents’ bedroom. We shared between us a wall . The walls were old and held sounds very well but this sound I heard perfectly clear, it was the worst sound I would ever hear come from beyond that wall – My Mother, crying herself to sleep. Loudly and painfully. I lay in bed, with no choice but to listen as I drifted off. It was as if no other sound was being made in the whole world but hers. Her cry for the love of her life - now dead and gone forever.


My dad was a great man, “our hero” my sister’s and I use to shout on our front porch whenever he left for work as the Lieutenant for the local fire station. But he was a very sick man, always in the hospital since I was a little girl. Nine months was the longest that the doctors told my father he shouldn’t eat or drink for the sake of saving his intestines. He had to lay in an old hospital bed with a T.P.N. bag in, an I.V., hooked up to machines that made funny clicks and beeps and read words and numbers I never understood. He quickly lost 60 lbs. Almost didn’t even look like the same handsome, rugged man he was before. 20 years a dedicated firefighter, known world wide for his teddy bear program which gives traumatized children a stuffed animal in their time of need. He had saved many lives in his line of work. Hard to think, now he couldn’t save his own.

On one of our daily trips to the hospital to visit him, mom, myself, and my oldest sister, Mandie rode the elevator. The steel doors seemed to have entrapped us as the red pixilated number above eye level showed us we were moving upwards. 2, 3, 4. It stopped. The doors opened, mom slowly walked a bit ahead and paced a bit faster than Mandie and I. She found the room where my father was, knocked lightly on the door, peeked in and then motioned a quick hand wave for us to follow.

We walked in and peered around the blue curtain. There he was -- my daddy -- laying between the crisp, white sheets… prize winning smile and all, as he pushed the “up” button for the head of his bed to lift carefully. He greeted us and I gave him a quick hug. We visited for a good 10 minutes before he was looking straight at me, his eyes slowly widening. He looks confused? I then realized he was gasping for air, struggling for life. My mom panicked and called for the nurse.

The room is slowly closing in. I’m watching as nurses rush in. The faint, hollow, cave of the room pours a dark feeling overhead. Nurses calling out, as if in slow motion, “Code blue! Code blue!” -- “He’s not breathing!”.

The next thing I remember, is Mandie shoving me out of the room and taking me to a deserted waiting room down the hall where I began to cry, wondering if he was just dying before my eyes, as she hugged me. Tears flowing down her cheeks. I was 12.

He soon got better, but only months later, he was gone for real. Two nights had passed after the shocking, life changing moment that I found out my daddy had died. It was late into the night and I was fast asleep, laying next to my mom. I awakened in the middle of the night to my mom -- nudging me, rolling me, calling my name to wake me up -– I was screaming in my sleep, at the top of my lungs. I still to this day have no idea what I was dreaming about or the fact that I was actually screaming. My mom said it was a night terror.

That next morning, I stayed in bed as late as possible. I woke to my sisters poking me and telling me to wake up. I am certain Mom must have put them up to it, because I hadn’t gotten out of bed since he died. Although, it felt as if just an hour had passed since I heard the news.

The news had spread like a wild fire. Many people -- friends from church, relatives and others I had never seen before had come to drop off their pre-made dinners, random cans of food, and to pay their respects to my mom -- the new widow.

I sat, curled up, in my dad’s favorite chair in the living room. People passing by as I made no effort whatsoever to greet them or even to acknowledge that they were there. My head was spinning and I felt completely numb with no need to speak, as if I was born with no voice even to begin with.

Days passed, the funeral came and went. I buried my father. Too many tears for a 13 year old girl to have in one lifetime.

My mom, without a job and a husband to provide for us, grew tired of this stress now becoming an everyday normalcy. We spent the next couple of months frequently going to the food bank to apply for free, expired or donated food for our now smaller family -- of five. Once a family with a steady income, suddenly asking for old, stale, possibly moldy food. It almost didn’t feel right taking old bean cans and an old birthday cake from a place with long lines of homeless folks with crying babies with holes in their shirts and dirt smudges on their pants, it looked as if they didn’t even care about scrubbing it off. How did this happen to our perfect little family? I thought. We were poor, losing our house, lost our father. How? But more importantly, Why?


My mom battled for months in court --and later won-- to obtain the pension money from my dad’s death. They determined that it was, in fact, work related. He had died of a heart attack, which was brought on by the stress of Hepatitis C. This he got from being elbow deep in blood in his line of work.

We moved. Too many painful memories in that house.
Reality had hit me fast and hard. There wasn’t a day that passed where I hadn’t cringed with the never-ending feeling that my life wasn’t the perfect life it once was. Staring into space and trying to keep my mind occupied in our new house now became a chore. I was tired of being home all day long with nothing to do but paint my nails a new shade or design a new outfit in my sketchbook.

Rants & Raves On This Frivolous Economy

I have recently found it slightly irritating when people decide to spend large amounts of money on extremely frivolous and trivial items.

A recent post to my Facebook read: "..Feeling like I need a new Coach purse."
Without rolling my eyes so far back into my skull that they miraculously did a 360... My thoughts are as follows..

Now, I don't want to make the awful stereotypical decision to say that everyone who wears $175 Jeans or everyone who carries an over-priced freshly skinned cow over their arm is "stuck up," However, you have to ask yourself, "Why are they really carring a Designer Handbag?" The most prominant cognitive intuition would be that she wants to be noticed and look as if she has money, therefor be put higher up on society's pathetic totempole. Who wants to be put there in the first place? Wouldn't you rather be noticed for your kindess, your sense of humor, your personality and attitude? Instead we (myself included) make that consious decision where, "I have to look good," "I have to get noticed," "People have to like me!" But doesn't it say in the bible, Romans 8:31 "What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us?" SO TRUE! It doesn't matter what you LOOK like to the world, what color your hair is, what kind of shoes you wear. God looks at your heart, he will never turn away from you because of your t-shirt, your teeth, your finger nails. He made you that way! He made you perfect in his eyes!

...*Ahem* Back on track...

I have never spent more than $60 on one item of clothing.
I have spent, regretfully, $130 on my hair color, cut and style. However, it was only once.
I have never owned a designer handbag. Not only for the sake of not wanting to portray a "holier than thou" attitude but because I am surely not willing to fork out over $500 for something that carries my wallet and a tube of lip gloss!

My argument is simply this: In this time and economy, shouldn't we ALL be thinking about more important things? Shouldn't we be paying more attention to some of the most famous scriptures of the bible?

Matthew 19:21 "Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me."

Matthew 6:20 "Instead, store up treasures for yourselves in heaven, where moths and rust don't destroy and thieves don't break in and steal."

Now, ask yourselves, what are you holding dear to your heart? Those new shoes? That giant flat screen that would look "perfect" in your living room? Or is it God and his will for your life?

Think about that the next time you're at Nordstrom, Best Buy, wherever you can get your "worldly fix." Because I tell you, a life full of all the money and riches in the world cannot buy love, cannot make you whole and happy. Only Jesus Christ can.


Thank you,
~J