Persevering Makes You Stronger
When life throws you lemons so sour they stain your soul — that’s when we learn to persevere.
I received two text messages in recent days from one of my best friends who is hurting badly right now. She is going through a horrible divorce and she is so depressed that she really doesn’t see a reason to go on living. The first text message asked me if I had ever hated someone so badly that I wished I was dead. I answered with an emphatic “NO!”, although there might have been an expletive to go along with that no. The second text message the next day, told me how to plan her funeral, to let her kids know they would be okay, and that she loved me. She was going to kill herself. Over a man.
My sadness and tears over these text messages has turned to anger. I am 45, almost 46 years old. I am a wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend and teacher. If we were to sit down together and I told you my life story, I bet we would need more than 30 minutes and a really big pot of coffee, a tall bottle of wine, or a 5th of vodka. Whichever you prefer. I would choose the wine.
Let me give you a little timeline of my life so I don’t take up too much space here with heavy details.
May 1978: Daddy has jaundice and is diagnosed with Hepatitis.
August 1978: Daddy still isn’t better and doctors decide to do exploratory surgery to see “what is wrong”. It’s cancer. Everywhere. In his pancreas and liver. Daddy doesn’t accept treatment and doctors say there is nothing they can do for him.
September 14, 1978: Daddy dies. He was 37 and I was 6. I had been in 1st grade for about a month. My mom was now a single mother of 5 daughters, had never worked and had to figure out how to get a job, pay the bills and make things work.
March 1980: Mom remarries.
1981: Stepdad leaves and mom spirals into bipolar depression.
1980–1981: Mom tries to kill herself twice while my sisters and I stand witness. Being told at 8 years old to run next door and call the operator to get an ambulance to your house because your mom is dying on the living room floor, that sticks with you for a while. Sometime during this period, she is admitted to the psych ward of a hospital in SW Houston and stays for 6 weeks. She misses my 9th birthday.
1981–1983: Things are relatively quiet other than the bipolar episodes that are treated with valium. Happy or sad. Black or white. Hot or cold. Never an in between. Never knew which mom you were going to get. This is when I started learning the art of walking on eggshells. I will use this skill when I marry my first husband.
August 1983: I’m in 6th grade and Mom finds out she has cancer in her left kidney. It quickly spreads to her bones not long after. I will miss so many days of school that year, the registrar who knows my family, will stop recording my absences so I don’t have to repeat 6th grade.
February 1984: I’m left at the age of 11 to take care of my mom as my older sisters have either gotten married or are in college. I sleep with her in case she needs something in the middle of the night. I don’t leave for school until her nurse shows up in the morning, sometimes making me very late for school.
May — July 1984: 6th grade year ends and things aren’t going great for mom. I spend my days doing chores around the house and waiting for someone to take me to the hospital so I can spend the day sitting with mom. At night I spend the night with one of two family friends. By June, mom is in the hospital and won’t come home, although she talks about it all the time. It terrifies me. I was always afraid she would die in the middle of the night and I would be the one to find her. I still dream about it.
July 3, 1984: Mom dies from bone cancer. She is 44 and I am 12. I have never been so relieved and devastated in all of my 12 short years. I was tired. I was glad she wasn’t hurting anymore. I was ready to be 12, not 30. I wanted to be a kid. That would take a while.
1992: I meet my first husband.
August 27, 1994: I get married to that narcissistic, serial cheating, emotional abuser. We have two beautiful daughters.
July 2000: I have proof for the first time he is cheating on me.
December 2000: We move to Colorado to be closer to the woman he is cheating on me with. She is older than his mother.
March 2001: I start taking prozac. It will end up saving my life.
May 9, 2001: The emotional and verbal abuse is so bad that I leave him in the middle of the night with my girls. We fly back to Texas to start our new life. He files for divorce.
February 14, 2002: My divorce is final, but his abuse still haunts me. (Best Valentine’s gift I ever received though!)
July 30, 2002 — March 7, 2007: I move into a beautiful, brand-new house with my girls. I live as a single mother. I have two jobs most of the time. I live paycheck to paycheck all of the time. I still take the abuse from 2000 miles away as he controls me through child support and under-earning.
April 2002: My brother is killed in a road rage incident here in Houston.
October 24, 2006: My oldest sister and very best friend in life dies from a massive coronary embolism due to complications from gastric bypass surgery. I think I might die from a broken heart. I never knew a heart could physically hurt. It can.
March 11, 2007: I meet my 2nd husband and best friend.
December 2014: My youngest daughter is diagnosed with severe OCD with intrusive thoughts, generalized anxiety and panic attack disorder. It will eventually paralyze her so badly that she reveals to me that she wished she wouldn’t wake up some days.
Not a fairy tale, but by any means, not the worst life anyone has ever had. I was never physically abused. After mom died, I moved in with the people I’ve called mom and dad for the past 33 years. They took me in as their own and loved me just the same. I gained a sister and two brothers from this new family. I went to college and graduated with a teaching degree. I’ve met and loved some of the most amazing friends on this planet. I’ve traveled to places I never thought I’d ever get to go. I’ve gotten to fly on private jets a few times. I’ve watched my girls blossom into amazing young women with bigger goals than I ever set for myself and I have no doubt they will accomplish them. I have met and cherish their future husbands. I’m sitting on the couch, right now, with my husband and our dogs as I type this while we watch the news. We have a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, heat coming from the vents and jobs to pay our bills. I know we will be together for the rest of our lives.
So why is this story worth telling? It’s worth telling because of my friend who wants to kill herself. It’s worth telling because I’m mad at her. I don’t think she gets to call it quits. I don’t think she gets to send me a message detailing how she wants her funeral and leave that on my conscience for the rest of my life. Her situation sucks right now. RIGHT NOW. I will never diminish her feelings or what she is going through. But the sun came up today just like it did yesterday. I believe life throws you lemons that are so sour and bitter sometimes that you can’t imagine ever getting the taste out of your soul. But I also believe that as an Iron Lady, you accept the challenge that has been handed to you. You find the courage and the spirit and you make it your daily determination to change your life or situation for the better. You don’t let the circumstances dictate your life. You put one foot in front of the other. You worry about point A and then B and then C. You don’t put your entire self-worth in the hands of one person; be it your husband, friend, or child. You love yourself first or no one will ever be able to love you back. You don’t try to see the light at the end of the tunnel right now, you just search for some light. You will always find someone worse/better off than you, but you praise God for all that you have no matter how big or how small. You make courage, spirit, and determination your mantra. You live. You LIVE. Because life without you is not a life I want to have to explain to anyone.
So many people hear me tell bits and pieces of my life story and wonder how I turned out so well. And by well I mean, not completely crazy! I always answer with the same thing, “This is the life I was given. I might as well make the best of it.” It would have been really easy to get mad at God and turn into a rebellious child. I could have allowed depression to take over my life and stayed on anti-depressants for the rest of my life. I could have. I could have. I could have. I didn’t. She doesn’t get to either.
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” James 1:2–4
An Iron Lady will take that verse and apply it to her life, daily, and when it’s her time to go, it’s God who will take her, not the circumstances she thought she didn’t have the courage to face.
