Memoir Collections

I suppose this will be a review of some sorts. I am turning seventy this month. I've been granted seven decades of life thus far. and am going into my eighth. And I'm very grateful.

~It makes me wonder, though...have I lived them fully?

~Have I loved people well enough?

~Have I learned what I was supposed to in and about life?

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(1 of 7)

The first ten years of my life saw the divorce and remarriage of my parents. There was a lot of adult laughter and drinking from the "good" days and fighting and drama from the "bad" days. You could call it tumultuous time for a child. But I remember being spoiled with toys and the love I found under the Christmas tree each year, just the same.

My brother and sister were born by the time the parties (not the drinking) had played out. But I was glad to have siblings so I wouldn't feel alone anymore.

Probably the best part of my first decade was when we lived in Canary Islands in 1960 and 1961. I can vividly recall the peace I found at the beach in the ocean, and in Spanish culture and the life I found myself in. This is better explained in my story:

Canary Birds, My Brother, & Speaking Spanish

Industry versus Inferiority (And The Challenge of a Seven Year Old Bilingual Student in the Sixties)

My sister was born in 1964 and we were back in the States then, my parents getting their final divorce at the time of her birth. And I think it could be said it was also the end of my childhood in many ways. I explain this in:

Generational Forgiveness

During those dark days, I found them brightened by my extended maternal family...aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandmother. There was also a lot of history being made in those years, like the Beatles, Barbie dolls, and color television!

Name for a Sister, Color TVs, Family Secrets, & The Beatles

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(2 of 7)

The next ten years of my life seemed calmer, more secure. In the following story, I stated:

Bad Week (Good Uncle)

"I basically lived with my mother's sister (Aunt Sis,) and her husband, (Uncle Bill) from the sixth grade through the tenth. They were crucial years for me. I was changing and developing into a confused and resentful teenager. I was angry with both my father and my mother. I couldn't understand the personal hells they were going through. I just felt the emotional impact of it all. I rightfully felt that I had been gypped. All their nonsense had been very much avoidable...alcohol abuse, adultery, and immaturity.

Living with my aunt and uncle, I found a life with no alcohol, total commitment to one another, and the utmost of maturity. I felt so secure in that. I had responsibilities, but was allowed to be a child, as well. I did not have to make decisions. I trusted in the ones they made for me. I trusted in their love for me. They were constant. And I thrived academically and emotionally in that environment."

Being apart from my mother and siblings, had left an empty spot in my heart, though. So, I eventually moved back in with them. I had reluctant misgivings, but the pull to help my mother was stronger. But there, I lacked strong leadership and at that age, had very little self-awareness. It was a recipe for failure. The following story was probably one of the hardest to write about (or live through.) But it tells my story:

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden (Teenager in the 70's)

The following stories will detail my relationship with my dad and his mother, Grandma Mary during this decade:

My Surprise (and what I learned about myself)

Bobby Spooner (I Didn't Like You, but I Did Love You)

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(3 of 7)

The third decade of my life is best described as "busy." By the time I was twenty-five, I had four children. They came from three different fathers. Two of whom, I had married. And one would not see his child until she was twenty-one with the help of Google for finding him.

I have always loved and always wanted each of my children. And, if I had a do-over, I would purposely choose again the path that brought them to me. They are my soul. In fact, this decade has and always will be my most important and meaningful one. Those days are my treasure box of love that I go back to again and again:

The Best Days of My Life

Turning thirty was a milestone for me, but not because of the number or the grey hairs I was beginning to see at my temples. No, it was because we lost the matriarch of my mother's family, my grandmother. The one whose bloodline will pass down through all females in our line. The one who taught me to "do the best that I could do and not worry about what I couldn't do after that." She had mothered eight and I, four...I had asked for her wisdom.

That was the catalyst that would launch me to college...to do better for my children. My youngest would be off to first grade and I wasn't about to just sit home and watch soap operas.

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(4 of 7)

I obtained my bachelor's degree in nursing in 1992. The first two years (summer classes included) my university was only 15 minutes from home. My husband then decided to move us from Louisiana to Mississippi so he could find more work. The university I went to was 68 miles from where we lived. I drove it back and forth every school day for two more years until I graduated. I was determined.

The marriage I was in was terrible. He was abusive to me and especially to the three children that weren't his. Getting an education was our only way out. So, I drove...

Right after my graduation, he left me. Thank God.

(I would retire from Nursing in 2020.) I trek my career in the following story:

Memoir of a Nursing Career

The nineties were a bit crazy in my household. A really nasty divorce/custody battle, teenagers going wild, and after my divorce, I had to find my identity again, too. I went a bit wild, myself. Not a good time in the lives of my children to have a "lacking" role model. We all just wanted to have a "good time." But we all had hurts we weren't healed from...

My first grandchild was born in 1995...I was forty and remember asking myself, "What is going on???" It was like the wind had picked up our lives and flown them about, tossing us all in separate paths. My children were becoming adults and some of them, parents. (By the year 2000, I would have eight grandchildren, by 2012, there would be twelve.)

And my mother and her siblings were either passing or in bad health. Our lives were turning abrupt corners and it seemed we had no footing. None of us were really prepared for those changes and empty voids.

And there were prices to pay for our transgressions and misfortunes along the way. We were all just barely hanging on.

I would end up in moving to Texas in 1997 to help my unmarried brother care for our mother after her second stroke. I took many trips state to state to visit with my children and grands. I felt so torn between generations. They all needed me, but there was only one of me. I wanted my brother to have the freedom in his life to get on with it. I wanted to be with my babies, too. My "barely" adult children understood my dilemma, but resentment still lingers. They felt abandoned. And I still feel guilt.

Some Things Never Change

Not Just an Aunt, (but a Guide)

True Love (starts and ends here...)

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(5 of 7)

Not only a new decade for me, but the dawning of a new millennium. Also, a marking point of living half a century.

I would marry, build a home, and start a new dimension in my nursing career as an educator...a very satisfying one. All of this brought the hope and happiness to me that I had not felt for a long time.

My mother would come to live with us due to her declining health status. She and I worked through our ambivalent relationship, and I began to understand her as a woman and love her as the mother that I had been blessed with.

At this point, I also became grounded in my spiritual life. It would see me through the difficult storms that were yet to be navigated. But for this decade, I celebrated being happy in the midst of my security.

Why Teaching Nursing Students (Made me Smile)

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(6 of 7)

If ever I felt like I was unravelling or transitioning, these ten years were to blame. I would lose my mother, my first cousin who was more like an older sister to me, and almost my brother. These events would happen in yearly succession.

Somehow, I kept my career going and it gave me purpose.

My marriage was drifting and eroding away, too. It seemed as if I was powerless to stop the cancer that was becoming our home. I didn't think it could get any worse until it did with the changes the new decade would bring.

An April Kind of Day

I Can't Let January Go By

The Crazy Dance (Bipolar Marriage Ending)

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(7 of 7)

This decade would best be described as my greatest upheaval. I felt like the life I had known had been brutally uprooted. But in its challenges and struggles and through them, I would find a deeper, more steadfast faith. And when I had found increased faith, then peace was gifted to me. I surrendered.

We would lose our Jade (my granddaughter) to a heroin overdose when she was only twenty-two years old.

I would get Covid during the pandemic, have a deep vein thrombosis/blood clot, retire, move my entire belongings to another state, live in a motel for over a month which ate up a chunk of my savings, and lose two beloved pets in this ten-year time frame. And I gained a chronic illness: fibromyalgia.

I admittedly lost my purpose for living for a short while. That is when I reached out for God's whole hand, not just His fingertips.

Reflections (my personal of the Year 2020)

Taking the Hand of a Parent (reluctant need of lessons)

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So, I start my new decade (the 8th) tomorrow on the 21st of June 2024.

To answer the questions of which I posed:

Have I lived life fully? Not always. But, in some ways, I lived a large life.

Have I loved well enough? No. There have been times I've been selfish and unforgiving and angry. But not always...sometimes I've loved so deep and so hard that it hurt.

Have I learned what I was supposed to learn? I've tried. But I did it my way far too long and not His. I had to keep repeating lessons.

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