Yesterday I left off when I had my son.

My son is a precious gift from God. No his father has nothing to do with him. He never sees him and the one time he did see him, he gave my son two black eyes, a busted lip, and a bloody nose. He courts will no longer allow even supervised visitation. About a month after my son was born, my papa died of cancer. I was lying in the living room with him on his hospital bed around lunch time, and I noticed that he was breathing funny....My gramma called the hospice nurse, and she came and said he had slipped into a coma. It wouldn't be long now. I was suffering greatly from post partum depression, I had almost died having my son. I hemoraged, and was out for four days getting blood transfusions. It was a bad time for all of us. I layed on the bed with my papa, and around three in the morning, I got up to go smoke a cigarette. My step mother was taking care of my son for me, she knew how close I was to my papa. When I came in from smoking the cigarette, my gramma was beside my papa in her chair, and he opened his eyes....My gramma told him it was ok to go, everyone was fine. He looked at her and croaked out in a small voice "baby girl",,,,my gramma signaled for me....I went and layed back down and gave him a huge hug. I told him that it was ok, and that we would be fine. Even though I was lying straight to his face, I didn't want him to suffer anymore. I didn't want him to actually die thinking he'd left something undone. It was the hardest lie I ever spoke. He rubbed my hair, and said " I love you" closed his eyes and never opened them again. I was the last one to talk with him, touch him, I miss him, he was my world....At the funeral, I tried to climb into the casket, I wanted to die and be buried with him. My dad took me to the hospital and I stayed sedated for about two days. I have still never been to his grave site. I still don't think I could live with it. I would crumble, I would die.... Life went on, I wasn't ever happy, but life went on. My son was about three months old when I met and married my second husband, Nemo. He was nice at first, but raped me on our wedding night. He turned cold and mean that first night.... I was stuck. I was pregnant again, and I was stuck. During my pregnancy, he hit, cut, raped, and threatened to cut the baby out of me while holding knives to my swollen stomach. He raped me up the back door in front of my son when my son was a year and a half old. He stomped on my daughters face and put my son's head in a ceiling fan on the day I told him I was leaving. Needless to say, I could have died, for he is now in prison for first degree murder in Southern California, and he is never getting out. I stayed single, never dating or anything for about four years. Then I met a man online. I refused to meet him in person. I just wanted to be friends. We talked online for a year. We decided to meet face to face. I was still in college, and was very close to graduation. cartography/geography. Very interesting work. Anyways...We dated for another year. He made me fall in love again, he treated me the way a man SHOULD treat a woman. Sure he has problems, I have problems, and by the Grace of God, we will work through them together, and come out stonger together. We married, and we adopted each others children. He is a wonderful husband, father, lover, and soul mate. Now I am happily married to a wonderful man, we have four children between the two of us. And hopefully,,,,,,we live,,,,,,,happily ever after. a little p.s. My memories have started coming back on the past, and I was finally able to have charges pressed against my mom and john,,,,Earlier this month they were sentenced to 140 years in prison.........

With what I've been through my whole life, it makes the problems that my husband and I have been and continue to go through trivial. He does show me compassion, respect, love, and support. Even knowing my past, and how sometimes I had "willingly" given myself for more drugs so that I could "escape". He has his own issues, and I am trying my hardest to be there for him as he has been for me. I am planning to use what has happened to me in my past, present and future to help other young girls and boys that are or have went through the same abuse as mine. I feel that if I share my innermost thoughts with them, it will give them hope that there is a better future, and that it IS a good thing to tell. Even though I didn't tell, I feel as if it wouldn't have went on as long as it did if I would have. I just hope and pray for every youngster out there that is being abuse, can somehow gather the courage to tell. That can be my only advice to them is to just tell. jackie