A BLOG FOR MY ANCESTORS: adversity

Fear

Fear has kept me silent before and sometimes it still does. I hate that kind of fear. It can be constricting, debilitating and shameful. It creates resentment of oneself. Even now and after many years, I feel uncomfortable just thinking and writing about it.

I used to fear speaking out because of the violence and anger that it would create within my home. That is the fear that sealed my mouth shut and helped me pretend in order to survive.

Now I am just fearful of being misjudged due to the social and religious stigmas attached to domestic violence. I have worked so hard to put my life back together over the last decade and I don't want to be perceived as victim again, EVER!

During recent years, I have had this strong urge to thoroughly write my own personal history as a way to continue healing, but I haven't done it.

I have dismissed this prompting many times by reminding myself that I have been given a new life and I need to move forward and that the person I was - is no longer and the years I lived with domestic violence are just faded memories of a very bad nightmare. However, 'stuffing' the experience has never felt right to me and it wasn't just a bad dream. It really happened.

This was the first family photo taken of us at the beginning of our journey of healing. The girls often express how this was one of the happiest summers of our lives. I felt like a caged bird that had been set free. I was so grateful that my children were able to finally have a happy mama. I was determined to set an example of strength and courage for them.

Then I started doing family history and something quite amazing happened. When I started digging into the past, I discovered ancestral stories of sorrow and joy, death and birth, marriage and divorce. There were inspirational stories of journeys completed and knowledge gained. Spiritual and emotional growth were intertwined among generations where some individuals suffered addictions, loneliness, suicide, and trauma.

Many of those stories were never spoken or told because of social norms or fear of shame. I knew that I needed to include them so that history of my family would be real and authentic. I felt that this knowledge would somehow bless the posterity of my ancestors. I just didn’t realize that these blessings would begin with me.

While I have been gathering and learning about the histories of the people in my family, I have become more confident and proud of even the most difficult parts of my own personal history. Authentically writing the stories of my ancestors has helped me overcome the fear of sharing the hardest parts of my own.

Reading about the tragedies, as well as the triumphs of my ancestors, has helped me to make personal connections with them across generations of time. They seem more real to me. I feel like my familiar support system includes those that have gone on before and they are cheering me on in heaven. I am strengthened by their examples and I am learning wisdom from all of their varied choices and different journeys.

This type of perspective has helped me to see more clearly how the adversity in my life has been an important part of appreciating the joy that I now experience. My joy and gratitude far outweighs any fear that I may still feel and as Great Grandpa Goulé would say, "It has given me the gumption to speak out."

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1:20 PM
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Journeys

adversity

10:48 AM
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A Chance to Say "I Love You", Again

adversity

I am sitting next to my father's hospital bed. The only sounds I can hear in his room is the beeping of machines, low whispers of medical personnel in the hall, and the ventilator which is pumping air into my father's weary body. It's hard to write or speak of how I feel below the surface without being overcome with emotion. I know that if I allow myself to speak fully about them, it would be impossible for me to be strong for my father and family right now. So, I will write instead.

I knew immediately when I heard my sister's voice on Wednesday morning that a tragedy had occurred and that something was wrong with my father. We had just left him on Monday afternoon. It was hard to say good-bye and bittersweet like always because we miss him and worry that he is lonely. We had just spent almost a week with him celebrating Thanksgiving and spending time together.

Bella had been his little shadow following him around on the farm as he tended to the rabbits, turkeys, and Stinkerbelle (his spoiled, peanut-butter loving pig), We played Balderdash late into the night numerous times, We laughed so hard at times we were crying and I truly believed my dad was going to pop a blood vessel he laughed so hard at the acronym definition of B.O.B. (The Brotherhood of Old Bastards). We ate Veyo pie every night and talked about visiting Aunt Diane in Whidbey Island, Washington. Dad talked about all the places in Canada he wanted to visit. We sat together twice and watched the The Cokeville Miracle. We cried while we watched and then spoke about our ancestors and loved ones on the other side and how we know they are with us and that they our guardian angels for us here on earth. Within moments his life changed, our lives changed, and now everything is different.

When my sister described the accident I wasn't sure if my father would survived it. I immediately dropped to my knees and started begging and praying that his life would be spared. I told God that I wasn't ready to let go of my Papa!

Afterwards, I felt guilty praying for what I wanted, especially after seeing him in the ICU and after the 6 hours it took to put his jaw back together. He had tubes going in and coming out of his body and he was highly sedated because of the amount of pain he was experiencing. His weary body struggling to breathe and yet because of the fact that he survived such trauma, he seem like a giant of strength to me. A man full of grit! Things haven't changed much in these few days except that they are bringing him out of sedation randomly throughout the day to check his vitals. We both dread and rejoice in these moments.

We dread the nausea that will soon overtake him once they turn the sedation down and he begins to move. All of this causes him to throw up which is extremely traumatic with his jaw is wired shut. It sets off alarms and everyone jumps up. Nurses rush in, someone starts suctioning, the bed is elevated, anti-nausea meds are administered, and we all pray that didn't aspirate anything. Then things calm down and we rejoice because in those brief moments we catch a glimpse of our papa again! We can only communicate by squeezing hands since his jaw is wired shut. We slowly say the alphabet and he squeezes our hand when we say the letter that he wants to use to spell a word and then one of us writes it down. It is a tedious process and takes many minutes to spell a 4-5 letter word. It is exhausting both physically and emotionally. Many times we would speak to fast or he would squeeze to late and we'd write the incorrect letters and then have to start all over again.

I will never forget that first message that he slowly communicated to us. It took at least 5 minutes of slowly reciting the alphabet, squeezing, and writing. It began with the letter I. Then the letters L, U, V.... We immediately figured out the rest of the sentence shouting it out loud in unison and then starting to both cry and laugh at the same time! I love you! His eyes were closed but he smiled with his lips to show that we had finally figured it our correctly. It was one of the sweetest moments that we had together by his bedside.

Such three simple words, "I love you" and how easy for us to say them daily under normal circumstances. I have learned that life can change in a moment and our opportunities to tell others that we love them may be gone. I am so glad for the moments we all had together over Thanksgiving. We shared so many memories and we said those words often to each other. I know that I would be struggling even more dealing with this experience if I hadn't just recently had that time with him.

May we all remember to continue saying those three simple words and to say them often! Not just to those in our lives that are the easiest to love, but to those who may need to hear it the most. May we reach out, forgive, and without any expectations of how it will be received, tell that someone that we love them today!

11:01 AM
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Gratitude

adversity

We have a special tradition in our family that begins around my youngest daughter's birthday during the first week of November. It continues throughout the holidays and has expanded to include my dear husband, son-in-law, grandparents, and other extended family members. It is our family's Gratitude Journal. It sits on the mantel or dining room table where it is always available to the family. I started the tradition of writing in it quite a few years ago. At the time, I was a single, working mother. The holidays were around the corner, along with seemingly endless challenges and I soon found myself in a dark place

I was in the midst of wallowing. It was deep and muddy wallowing full of painful emotions and financial burdens. I was reeling from the effects of betrayal, abuse, messy divorce proceedings, and I was chin-high in bills and financial obligations that were left behind as a result of it all. My children were in the thick of it with me. It was painful to see them suffer innocently and so eventually I found myself also wallowing deep in self-pity. Then I did the most dangerous thing a person can do when wallowing, I started to compare.

I began to look around and compare my life to others. Everywhere I went and everyone that I saw seemed blissfully happy. I falsely assumed and was sure that behind their smartly-wreathed and decorated front doors there was only laughter, joy, and peace. The more I compared myself and my family to those around me, the more miserable I became until I was literally in fetal position in bed one night, full of self-pity and paralyzed with grief. I began to wonder what had I done to be dealt such a sour deck of cards. Then I started the negative self talk which included a list of all the reasons why I of course, didn't deserve happiness. I was in a bad place!

When I am in trouble I have learned to do two things; I reach up and out! I pray and read inspirational books or scriptures! While reading one day, I came across this advice, "When you are struggling to feel grateful, have an attitude of gratitude. Keep a journal and write down something daily that makes you feel grateful."

Initially, when I read that advice I thought to myself, "Well, that's a bunch of hooey (or some other descriptive word)!" Sometimes when you feel miserable, wallowing can feel so good but only temporarily. So then I eventually decided to act on that advice. I found a notebook that would become my gratitude journal. I started to write down specific things that made me feel grateful each day. It took awhile at first to think of something to write. I was so focused on everything in my life that difficult and sad at the time.

My list started out simple and short; air, food, water, life.

Then over time I couldn't stop writing. My list was getting longer and more detailed.

My life hadn't changed, but my attitude did and so then my burdens became easier to bear.

Soon, I encouraged my children to participated in the gratitude journal writing and I bought a special book with a picture of the resurrected Christ on the cover. The picture reminded me of His promise to heal my broken-heart (Luke 4:18) and it gave me additional strength.

Our Family Gratitude Journal

Being grateful helped me to feel closer to Him and my children felt this peace as well. I felt humbled and blessed when my children expressed their gratitude for the simple things we had in our lives and for the small blessings that can easily be taken for granted.

These words are a treasure to me now. A collection of all that we truly had during a time in our lives when at first, I thought we had almost nothing. Christ keeps his promises! He blessed me with the desire to feel gratitude while experiencing adversity. Through this experience, He healed my broken heart and helped me to see more clearly.

When we first started the tradition, Bella wasn't writing by herself. We transcribed her words as she spoke. In her first gratitude entry she said that she was grateful for her name! In this entry above, she wrote that she was thankful for all of our food and the vegetables that we had harvested from our garden.

One of my favorite pages

My sweet girls

12:18 PM
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Skeletons

adversity

“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton,

you may as well make it dance.”

-George Bernard Shaw

So, what do you do when you find a giant, 165 year old skeleton in the closet? You get all the women in the family together to ruminate the discovery. Our first annual Smith|Goulé family history girls-night-out happened on the eve of Halloween. It was an eventful evening for our family. The first of its kind and a tradition we hope will continue for years to come.

A few weeks before we all gathered in a large hotel room in Park City, one of my aunts made an unexpected discovery. She had been perusing old English newspapers online through the FindMyPast website. After typing in the name of Louis Henry Goulé and to her surprise many articles popped up in the result field giving accounts of the same 1845 event: Murder at Durham!

There were numerous accounts of the murder and it was the topic of much discussion in the town of Durham at the time. Louis Henry was well-known as the Superintendent of the Police. He shot his wife, Emma in the arm after a fit of jealousy. On the night of June 10, 1845, Louis Henry accused her of spending too much time with another man. Emma adamantly denied his accusations in the presence of other family members before she was shot. She died 6 days later from lockjaw caused by the gunshot wound. Louis Henry was found guilty of manslaughter on grounds of insanity and sentenced to three years prison time. He was acquitted of more severe charges which would have surely resulted in a hanging sentence and ultimately the end of that branch of my family tree.

This 3rd great-grandfather of mine left prison a changed man. He moved back to Ombersley where he originated and where his extended family still resided. He attended school to become a veterinarian and then married my 3rd great-grandmother, Mary Ann Knott. Together they had three children (he had no children with his first wife) and lived a seemingly quiet life after that.

My great-grandfather, Harry Thornley never spoke about this story or his grandfather to anyone in the family. We don't even know if he knew about it himself. It truly was a skeleton buried deep within our family closet until this month and 165 years later.

During our girls weekend we discussed all of this and then the victim, Emma Gyles. She had married one of our ancestors and her life had been cut short at just 31 years of age because of her husband's impulsive choice to be violent. We pulled out our laptops and spent time researching her family members. We read about her feisty attitude described in the testimonies of others and celebrated her assertiveness. We tried to pay homage to her by talking about what her life might have been like at that time. We all mourned her passing while trying to imagine how difficult it was for her family to overcome this loss in their lives.

Until this point, I had felt comfortable only sharing stories of my ancestors which included those in my direct line that had been victims and survivors of circumstance and abuse. I had never discovered a perpetrator directly in my ancestral line. I realized that I really only wanted to write stories about the heroes and heroines in my family; a woman that gave birth in a covered wagon with the threat of an Indian attack outside; brave young men escaping the French revolution in the dead of night; young girls helping their families settle the West and build up towns; brave men rescuing pioneers from certain death during a winter snowstorm.

This realization helped me understand that I also need to embrace all the tragedies that make up my family history. By doing so, I am acknowledging the pain and shame that comes to families who may have a member among them who chooses to cause violence, or impulsively makes poor choices negatively impacting the lives of others around them.

All of the sudden I felt so much compassion for families who suffer this type of adversity. I also realized how important it is to avoid any type of concluding judgements when discussing families or parents of perpetrators. Through the countless hours of time that I have spent researching my own family, I have also concluded that if any one of us is to dig long enough we will surely find deeply, embedded skeletons within each of our family closets. It is also important to remember that making poor choices is not in our DNA. Being a perpetrator of violence is not in a person's genetic make-up. It is a choice! Louis Henry Goulé made a very poor choice and it resulted in the death of his first wife. His actions should not cause me to feel shame, but should help me to feel greater empathy towards others.

Family History Girl's Night - After an afternoon at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah and a yummy dinner at Sugar House BBQ, we headed to a large family suite in a Park City Hotel.

We stayed up chatting and researching until 2 AM. We are so sleepy and tired in this picture!

Slumber Party!

Aunt Linda is up way past her bedtime!

The next morning and more exciting discoveries are made after just 5 hours of sleep! We had a hard time
stopping and saying our good-byes!

Beautiful mother and daughter look a likes, deep in thought and discussion!

Hey, Smith|Goulé women mark your calendars! Next year's Family History Girl's Weekend is already scheduled for November 11 & 12!

11:11 PM
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Hands

adversity

I think that I have always believed in angels, even though I might not have understood how they carry out God's work here on earth. As a little girl, I remember learning about the stories of angelic visitations in the scriptures. Believing in angels was an easy thing to do with the faith of a child. As I grew into adulthood and started to experience the storms of life, I didn't expect angels to visit me. However, I did pray to God and He did send me help and sometimes he sent it before I knew I needed it.

I am sure many angelic miracles occur around us daily without our knowledge; guiding our car around an icy curve, helping our child cross a busy street. God sends us Heavenly help in a myriad of ways. I am sure that my Heavenly Father has helped me on numerous occasions without me even being aware of it. However, I knew on this particular day He had sent help and He did it in the most unexpected, obvious, and loving way.

It had been almost a year and a half since the girls and I found shelter at the Women and Children in Crisis Center. After that night things changed rapidly and once the courts were involved the civil and criminal proceedings rolled along on their own accord. I now spent most of my energy on trying to provide for my daughters while dealing with the roller coaster of events that continued to play out in the legal system.

Despite the thousands of dollars I was still having to pay my attorney and also being solely responsible for supporting my daughters, I was still better off financially than when I had been married. I had my own bank account and access to my paycheck and the bills were being paid. My self-respect returned and I felt empowered. We were happy and safe, but there was absolutely no extra money. In fact every month there was a deficit, but it always worked out in unexplainable ways.

One of the first things I did to try and make our house a home was to paint every room. If your house is 800 square feet, paint is a pretty inexpensive way to clean things up and change a room. Also, it's cheap therapy. Initially, the entire house felt dingy and dark. It had needed to be repainted for years and since I had never been allowed to be creative before in my own home, I went all out.

We worked together and painted each room was a different color. The girls helped me choose the colors. We painted red walls in the kitchen, yellow in the hallway and green in the living room. We painted the bathroom orange. I made curtains for all of the rooms. We found second hand furniture that we could paint and restore.

It finally felt like a home for the first time in over ten years. They girls were so proud. They wanted their friends over for the first time. Our home was not only a peaceful and happy place, but now it was bright and cheerful inside and I loved having it full of the girls and their friends.

The outside was a different story. The 50 year old siding was falling off in pieces. Some of the old original windows had still not been replaced and the ones that had been were not framed in properly. Some of the rooms were without electricity and I had to drag extension cords around the house. All of these factors definitely increased the cost of utilities in both the winter and summer months. Our neighbors and fellow church members noticed and came to me asking me if they could help as part of their yearly service. I humbly agreed and was very naïve to the depth of the project they had in mind for me and my family.

I never considered having the outside redone because I knew that I just couldn’t afford it. Now, I felt like I would be getting a new house completely. I had no idea the love and healing that would occur within my heart and also, that my Father in Heaven was the motivating influence behind this project. That is until day arrived for the service activity to begin on my home.

Their plan was to rip all of the old siding off, put up the foam board, and then snap into place all of the plastic siding. Some new windows were to be installed and electrical lines repaired. They would install trim and gutters after that. Even now, years later and while writing about it, I can't stop myself from crying and feeling so humble and blessed.

It is difficult sometimes being on the receiving end of service but I guess I had gotten to the point in my life where I absolutely knew I couldn't do it on my own anymore. I had completely surrendered and accepted and prayed constantly for God's hand in my life. I was so grateful for anyone who reached out their hand and offered help and support.

I hadn't prayed for my home to be repaired but I had prayed for Him to give me strength to help me continue supporting my girls. I prayed asking Him to blessed my daughters and protect them from the effects of the poor choices made by others around them. I wanted them to feel His love and to be strengthened by it. I needed my Savior more than I ever had in my life. And then he answered my prayers just as he always did, so unexpectedly and so powerfully.

I felt His love with every pounding nail and smile and hug. My heart was over flowing with gratitude and warmth and since I couldn't stop crying, I wept and walked around inside my house cleaning and organizing, while so many hands helped cover the outside of my home with insulated foam board, new bright siding. Gutters were installed on the eaves and trim placed where it was needed. I never felt judged or pitied, only loved and blessed and cared for more deeply than I ever had. I felt warmth, protection, and the healing love of God.

I wanted to repay these earth angels; my neighbors and friends who had spent so much of their own time and resources to help me. I wanted to do something to show my gratitude while they worked so hard outside. So, I decided I would feed them. I looked in the fridge and freezer and I had nothing to offer but hot dogs. I got to work heating them up for the volunteers. I knew my words could never match what my heart was feeling and so I could only pray that they would all know how grateful I was when they heard my simple thank you and saw that large pot of steaming hot dogs. It was meager compensation for their generosity.

In the end, my little house was more beautiful than I could have imagined. That wasn't all that was beautifully repaired that day. My heart was soothed and comforted. I was strengthened to continue pressing forward in order to fulfill all of my motherly duties and teaching responsibilities, despite the stress of all that was happening in the court systems.

More importantly, my daughters saw the Hand of God in their lives. They felt His love and they knew that He was watching over and providing for them. The hands that my Father in Heaven used to bless our family that day were the hands of His other earthly children. And I think that is the most beautiful part of the story, we are and can be angels for each other. We can be God's hands and we can love and serve each other just as He would if He were here on earth.

A very special thank you to all my Cascade 6th Ward friends and family!

11:10 PM
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Grace

adversity

God's Grace has blessed me over and over again throughout my life. Over the past few days I have been pondering one of the many miracles that He performed in my life during the darkest of days.

I had just left the Women and Children in Crisis Center with my daughters. The youngest was just two and half. We had returned to our family home after a judge granted us the house through a protective order. Our lives had imploded and I felt shell-shocked and full of the fear of the unknown. Each day was a challenge as I would rise wearily from a sleepless night and put on a happy face for my children. The dark shadows of anger and rage was now gone within our home and this brought me great relief.

However, I was faced with heaping bills of debt, a house that was in the early stages of foreclosure, legal fees, and consistent threats of and violations of the protective order. I had no idea how I was going to meet all of the financial obligations of the family, including all of the debt left behind for me to assume completely, on just my teacher's salary.

I was fearful of losing my job, especially if my personal problems leaked out and patrons of the school heard of them and were worried about safety issues. I didn't fully understand the social stigmas associated with domestic violence until I was in the midst of trying to escape it. I was beginning to realize that people, hearing stories through the media or having innate fears or misunderstandings of their own, could pull away and back off and not want any part of something that they didn't understand.

This realization came to me like a blow to the face when my daughter's daycare provider came to me and told me she could no longer watch my youngest daughter. This woman felt like I may of over-reacted by filing a protective order and that she couldn't support me in my decision to leave my husband and that I needed to find a new baby-sitter. Apparently, my husband at the time went to her and tearfully told her a story. I don't know exactly what was said, but it was enough to convinced her to pass judgement on me and refuse to watch my daughter.

I was shocked and hurt, but mostly so very worried about who would care for my daughter now while I worked. What if others from my place of employment or parents of the children in my classroom, what if they felt the same way? What if this whole thing (wanting to free my children from witnessing violence at home and wanting my own freedom from humiliating physical and psychological abuse) caused me to lose my job?

How would I support my children? How would I feed them? Where would we live? What if we had to move? The children would lose their friends at school and church. The only support systems they had ever known. I began to panic. What if I was wrong? Doubt filled my mind. I began to doubt myself. Then I could hear the voice of the adversary repeating the words spoken to me often throughout my marriage, “I told you no one would believe you. You are crazy. You always over react. What an idiot. Without me you're nothing.”

I ended up in fetal position on my bed that night. The girls were already asleep. It was a Friday. I remember being grateful to have the weekend to get myself together before the work week started again and I was bombarded with more unknowns. My prayer was just three words at first. Help, Help, Help! I repeated them over and over again in my mind.

Then, I remember calling out to God reminding Him in a childish way. You promised to help me. You led me to the shelter and brought me here. What do I do? These are your daughters too. I know you love them. You loved them first before they ever came to me. Please, help me know how to take care of them. Protect them from all of this. Please Father, just put a bubble around them that can deflate all the negativity, sorrow, and pain. I will take is all for them. Just help me protect them from having to suffer because of the actions of a parent.

Bella's blessing day and McKenna's baptism day!

Finally and from exhaustion, I stopped speaking and slinging words up to heaven. I laid in silence and wept and then very slowly I felt the anxiety slowly dissipate and I heard the sweetest words in my mind, "I am HERE. Wendy, I am here! I have ALWAYS been here and I am waiting for you to give me your burden. Lay it at my feet!" My heart began to overflow with love and soon, I was sobbing with gratitude. Peace entered my soul and I felt calm and protected.

Then, the scripture came to me take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest unto your souls. I had heard this scripture many times in my life but in that moment it became so real to me. I had been trying to carry this immense burden alone and was buckling under the weight of it. All I had to do was surrender and give it to Him. He who knows all the sorrows of the world and is the only great Healer of hearts. The last impression I remember feeling that night before finally fell fast asleep, was that everything would work out and that I needed to ask for help at church on Sunday.

Throughout the next day as I went about my duties, I had to continually visualize in my mind wrapping up my burden in a bundle or package and literally laying it at the feet of Jesus. Or I would visualize two Oxen yoked to together and then visualize my Savior standing next to me helping me carry my burden. If I didn't do this I would fill myself slipping back into that fearful, anxious state I had found myself the day earlier.

The next day was Sunday and I was craving the peace that I would find there as I worshipped with others. I was nervous about asking for help. Some of my close friends knew about the details of my marriage ending but I had done a very good job of keeping everything a secret for many years. So, many people were shocked and I expected there was confusion and talking, but I didn't care. I was mostly worried that some would misjudge me. However, if I began to feel fearful of that or of the future I would remember those sweetly and simple words, I am here!

I asked the Relief Society President to announce for me in the Sunday meeting for the adult women, that I needed a new babysitter for my youngest child immediately and that I wouldn't be able to pay much, if anything for a while. I felt slightly humiliated asking for a handout but was desperate for help and then I went to sit in the Young Women's class (youth class) where I served at the time.

After church was over and people were exiting the building, one of the ladies walked right up to me in the hallway. She grabbed me smiling and said, "I want to watch Bella!" I couldn't believe it! I was on the verge of tears, I tried to explain, but I can't pay you much, if hardly anything." I started crying then and her eyes filled with tears. She said, "Wendy, I want to take care of Bella! I am not doing it for money. I want to care for Bella." I was overcome with gratitude.

How do you thank a woman who is willing to step into your place as a mother, when you can't be there yourself? How I ached to be with my daughter all day, but that was not a possibility for me and so the Lord provided a way for my daughter to still be loved and nurtured and He soothed my aching heart in the process.

This sweet sister had two older sons the same ages as my two older daughters. She had not been blessed with anymore children after that and I know her heart ached for more. Bella would help fill a void in her life too.

This Christ-like sister was a surrogate mother to my daughter for over two years. She loved, taught, and nurtured her in her home. Bella received her undivided and loving attention during a very difficult time in our lives. This situation ended up being so much better than the daycare Bella had originally been attending. The Lord was well aware of Bella's needs and He knew both of our motherly hearts as well. He had lovingly orchestrated the entire thing.

To others it may seem like a simple story full of coincidences. I know different. Through the Grace of God it was one of many miracles that occurred during those dark days of my life. Those miracles were like beacons of light that illuminated my path helping me see how and what I needed to do to help my children.

I never felt truly alone as a single mother during those years. I felt God's hand in my life constantly and whenever I turned to Him, He helped show me the way. He put others in my path who were earthly angels, inspired to administer to the needs of my daughters. He was always actively helping me raise my precious daughters. All I had to do was ask and for this I will be eternally grateful. Our Father in Heaven is the Father of us all. He knew and loved our own children first. He knows and loves them still and He will always help us in our divine role as a mother. All we need to do is call upon Him and His Grace and He will lead us lovingly home.

My daughters and I together at Sariah's wedding in 2012

5:42 PM
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Thirst

adversity

My head injury was the catalyst that helped me to see how important it was for me to change my life. Up until the point of the horse accident, I realized that my children had mostly seen me sad, stressed, or scared. When I did seem happy, it was usually forced and fake for the children's sake. So while lying on my back in a horse corral and staring at the dark sky on that spring night in 2004, I thought to myself that if I die now my children will have never known me to be truly happy. That thought caused me to feel a deep sadness for my children. I wanted a chance to make that not be true and that is when I started to change my life.

Recovering from a traumatic brain injury is like being in a deep and sluggish fog that slowly starts to dissipate over time. I knew that I had hurt myself, especially my brain when my head made contact with the metal fence. However, I didn't know the extent of my injury immediately.

After arriving at the hospital by ambulance the night after the horse accident, my world started to get very foggy. I guess the adrenaline which had hit my blood stream after being thrown from the horse had finally stopped pumping through my veins. The swelling of my forehead had continued. Apparently the right side of my head had sort of a Frankenstein quality to it. At least that was what I was told by the ER nurse. It wasn't aesthetically comforting to know that my head looked large and squarish, but medically it was probably good news! Most of the swelling was occurring outside of my skull. Initial brain scans showed no bleeds on my brain and so the doctors stated I had a severe concussion and should consider myself lucky. They kept me for observation for a few more hours and since I had never lost consciousness, they released me.

I wanted to get home to my girls. My daughter was fine and I was so grateful knowing that nothing had been injured or broken on her little body. She had been released hours earlier after all of her scans and x-rays came back normal. So I tried to get out of my hospital bed and move to the wheel chair.

The problem is I couldn't walk. Whenever I moved the world started spinning so fast I had to fall to the floor and hold on for the ride and then hold perfectly still until it stopped. Even in bed I fought the vertigo. If I turned over or re-positioned my head, I felt myself and the bed start spinning in a fast circle. I was grateful the vertigo didn't cause nausea for me like it can for others, but I still couldn't function because I couldn't move. They told me that the intense vertigo would gradually go away and before I left the hospital they fitted me with a pair of crutches to use to get around.

So I went home and was soon left alone to recover with my six month old baby. Holding a baby while using crutches is impossible and since I was afraid of falling while carrying her, I crawled. I have memories of crawling across my bedroom floor to her crib. Using the crib to hoist myself up and get her out. Then I would use the crib with my one free arm to slowly drop to the ground and one arm crawl back to bed. It was awkward but safe and it got us to my bed where I could lay down and nurse her. She would sit and play on the bed until I crawled back to her crib and put her in. Thank goodness she hadn't started crawling yet herself.

I don't know how long it was before my mother and sister arrived and saw me like this. They were shocked when they saw the condition that I was in and that I was alone. I hadn't thought to call for help, I was so out of it. I was a sight to behold. The large hematoma on my head had slowly changed to a deep purplish blue and the color dripped down my face under the skin. In addition, to the dramatic purple and blue hues on the right side of my face, my eye was black and swollen. My hair was matted and still had remnants of dirt from the horse arena. I was so grateful that they could help me wash it.

The doctors were correct. The vertigo slowly left over time and a week later I was back at work teaching and wearing sunglasses. I didn't want to scare my first graders when they looked at my face. The swelling had gone down but now my bruising was starting to turn green and brown on my face and neck. I still struggled with positional vertigo. When I would focus with my right eye to write on the board, my classroom would start spinning. If I changed position and held still it would eventually stop. There were other subtle things that I noticed. It was hard to stay focused on a task for an extended amount of time. For the first time in my life, I suffered from headaches. I would become extremely fatigued by the end of the day and then I started to get thirsty.

It wasn’t a normal thirst, like the kind I had experienced in the past. This intense thirst started gradually until it became so powerful that I would have licked up a dirty puddle off the ground if that is all I could have found to drink.

I first noticed it when I was pumping breast milk during morning recess for my baby. There were a couple of us working moms and so the school had turned a large closet in the building into a lactation room where we could plug in the pumps and collect the milk for our babies. I remember thinking. Wow, I'm really thirsty. It must be the change of the weather (it was getting hotter outside) or I must be producing more milk.

Every day I would get a little thirstier. Eventually, I got to the point where I was drinking a full water bottle hourly and then running to the bathroom to pee it all out. This lasted all day and all night long. For the hour that I would sleep in between hydrating and dehydrating sessions at night, I would dream of water. Water, Water, Water! Tall glasses of water, streams of ice cold water, waterfalls, waves of water and in my dreams I would be trying to drink the water and yet I never could get it to my mouth. I would wake up desperate for water and running to the bathroom to pee out more water. It was as if every cell in my body was shrinking and screaming for water at the same time. I would gulp it down and it still wasn't enough. It was exhausting and I knew something was seriously wrong with me.

I scheduled an appointment with my doctor. I needed to see him anyway. It had been a month since the accident. He specialized in emergency medicine and sports medicine and he knew right away what was wrong with me. “It sounds like you’ve injured your pituitary,” he stated matter of factly. “The small master regulatory gland located in the center of the brain. It's very hard to injure that." He said, "Especially without damaging other areas of the brain.” He ordered an MRI to confirm it and called me after receiving the results. He further explained, "Your pituitary was almost ripped from its location when you jolted your brain in the fall. Its blood supply was compromised." He concluded that my pituitary was no longer functioning and had begun to atrophy.

He also went on to explain that my body would no longer be able to retain water on its own. Treatment consists of taking a synthetic hormone every 4-6 hours daily or when the crazy thirst starts for the rest of my life in order to avoid dehydration. The medical diagnosis was Central Diabetes Insipidus.

"Be grateful you didn't break your neck or suffer cognitive brain damage," he went on to say. "It really is quite a miracle." I left slightly in shock and trying to feel grateful but mourning the loss of my pituitary. I began to wonder how my life would be affected by this change.

As my pituitary shrunk and atrophied, my courage grew. I knew now how short life could be now. A slight change in the angle I fell or the force of the fall could have easily changed the outcome of the injury causing it to be much more debilitating or fatal. How easy my life could have ended that night. Every day was a gift now and I knew it!

My mother once wisely said to me, "Wendy, you live with what you allow and if you choose to allow it and live with it, you must accept it!" Well, for almost 15 years I had lived with abuse and allowed it to happen. I wasn't going to accept it anymore.

I had given all of my power and control to someone else and trying to take that back is a very hard thing to do. It almost seems impossible at times.

I had made the mistake for years thinking that someone and something outside of myself was responsible for making me happy. I kept waiting for things to change, for him to change. When all a long I was the one needing to change in order to find happiness!

I felt empowered now and I couldn't be intimidated. I felt stronger and more confident with the knowledge that happiness was attainable and within my reach. I was determined to make a better life for my daughters.

Every time I felt thirsty, I was reminded of this and so constantly I was recommitting myself to moving forward with this change. If I felt weak I would eventually soon feel thirsty and then be reminded again. This process helped to strengthen me.

I knew that God had protected me and had spared my life. I felt His help and hand in my life. I also began to clearly see that my happiness did not include the man that I had been married to for all of those years.

When I started to express this and assert myself, the violence increased. However, my thirst for happiness and peace were far greater than my fears and so I was able to slowly begin to change my life.

12:09 PM
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Fear

Journeys

A Chance to Say "I Love You", Again

Gratitude

Skeletons

Hands

Grace

Thirst

Every time I felt thirsty, I was reminded of this and so constantly I was recommitting myself to moving forward with this change. If I felt weak I would eventually soon feel thirsty and then be reminded again. This process helped to strengthen me.

Hi, I'm Wendy!

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