Choosing Life

Okay, Ladies. What's your most favorite thing to do? I know, go to the gynecologist for your annual exam, right? Most of us would rather go to the dentist. (Sorry, George) But seriously, I always have a plan. Go in, answer their questions, let them do what they have to do, and get out. I don't know what went wrong, but when my OBGRN starting asking me questions, my mouth went off. I was saying way more than I intended. Before I knew it, I was telling her all kinds of things I never talk about. And she just kept asking more questions. Then she told me I have to write a book. My response? "Who would believe it? I lived through it, and I don't believe it."

I am 71 1/2 years old. I've had two children and three husbands. The third time is the charm. If I had known that I would have had another child.

I am also a "survivor." God knew I was going to need a lot of help, so He gave me crooked legs and bad lungs. A lot to overcome.

I've been planning to write this book for 70 1/2 years. The trouble is that the longer I live, the less I have to say. And the fewer people I care to say it to.

In 1986 I was forty-four. I had just had gall bladder surgery, the old way, and I was between jobs. My father had left my mother for a woman younger than me who, according to my father, owned a house of prostitution in a small town in another state. My mother, a diabetic, had an open ulcer on the bottom of her foot. She had to stay off her feet if it was ever going to heal. The doctors were mentioning amputation. So I left my life in the desert of the southwest and went back east to take care of her. It all started then.

I rented a wheel chair and we went everywhere. Our favorite places were the boardwalks along the North Atlantic coastline. We would sit there and watch the ocean for hours. I started reading to her. One of the books I picked up was Women Who Love Too Much. It was a revelation. I had no idea that other women were like us, and I had no idea that we were not "normal." It was then I started my search for "normal."

During my search, a friend told me that I needed to get in touch with my "inner child." I thought about that for a few weeks and then told her, "I don't have an inner child." That night I had a dream. I saw a little girl all by herself in a place that was just white everywhere. No walls, floor, ceiling, outdoors, indoors, nothing. She was standing there alone in a little blue ruffled dress, white socks and patten leather shoes screaming in horror. I named her "Baby Tracy," and I've been taking care of her ever since.