Happily Ever After: The Life-Changing Power of a Grateful Heart Read online

  Approximately four weeks after she was so harshly taken advantage of, my mom went to the student health center and got a blood test. After a very long week waiting for the results, a sympathetic doctor told her she was pregnant—her biggest fear had come true.

  Ironically, she remembers walking out of the health center on that beautiful spring day with a smile on her face. No matter the circumstance of the baby’s conception, her spirit couldn’t contain the inner happiness she felt with the potential for growing a new life inside her. She found the baby’s father at work, gave him the news, and not surprisingly, her happiness quickly transformed to sadness. Given how he’d disrespected my mom a month earlier, he predictably didn’t pay her any mind. He told her that he didn’t believe she was pregnant with his child and went back to his duties at work.

  And so her silent journey began.

  My mom appreciated the life inside her and knew there were thousands of loving families eager to give a newborn baby a home. Since she couldn’t bear the thought of raising a child whose birth would so significantly dishonor herself and her family, and whose conception involved such a painful memory, my mom made plans to give the baby up for adoption. She attended regular appointments at a women’s clinic to make sure she and the baby stayed healthy, and she reached out to Catholic Charities. The caring people there not only helped her prepare for the adoption but also found her a job in Chicago and a safe place to live where her condition would remain a secret from the people back home in Indiana.

  My mother’s family was not unlike many—sharing a space they called home, but keeping the special details of their lives hidden away. If only my mom had been more careful, the details of her pregnancy would’ve remained hidden as well. Although she usually paid for her visits to the health center with cash, she failed to do so on one occasion. Before my mother left town to start what everyone thought was a new job, her mother beat her to the mailbox on the day that singular bill arrived. After learning the truth, my mom’s mother ended up trying to support her daughter through occasional visits to Illinois and gifts of maternity clothing, but she couldn’t offer much more than that—probably due to her own fears.

  The day my mother went into labor, she was entirely alone. When she arrived at the hospital, she was wheeled into an area separate from married women also going through labor—so as not to upset her, they said.

  My mom knew that labor would be difficult, but the hours of physical agony were a cakewalk compared to a heart-wrenching detail she hadn’t been warned about—she wouldn’t be allowed to hold the baby she had just brought into the world. Her only glimpse of the newborn, whom she named Teresa Marie, was through a glass window to the hospital nursery. Even though she had never questioned her decision to give up the baby, as she truly felt it was the right thing to do, the tears wouldn’t stop flowing. She wanted to hold the baby she had carried, even if just for a brief moment, and then hand her over to her future family, who my mother hoped would give her baby a life full of love.

  After returning to her family home a few weeks later (after her “job” in Chicago had ended), my mother was faced with something even harder than never holding her newborn child—signing the official paper “irrevocably relinquishing all parental rights to said child.” It was a day that started and ended in tears. Lonely tears.

  Knowing what my mom went through, alone, breaks my heart. For twenty-five years, she searched for her lost daughter—making phone calls, registering on different adoption sites, filling out multitudes of forms, and updating her contact information anywhere and everywhere she could. In an attempt to help her find solace, I tried on two separate occasions to find my half sister myself. I knew how much my mom yearned to know whether the daughter she had never known was healthy and happy, but neither of us ever heard a peep. No one reached out to us for information. We received no response to our inquiries, and she didn’t even have a mother’s intuition as to whether her child was still alive.

  In December 2008, when “Teresa Marie” was due to celebrate her fortieth birthday, my mother came to the conclusion that she would never know the trajectory her life had taken, and two months later, finally let it go.

  A year and a half later, on August 17, 2009, my mom was at work when she picked up a voice-mail message from someone looking to speak with her. Assuming it was job-related, she returned the call.

  “This is Roseanne. I believe you were trying to reach me.”

  She heard: “My name is Kathy. I was born December 30, 1968.”

  An ordinary call turned into one that couldn’t have been more extraordinary.

  In shock, my mother sat silently on the phone, wondering if this was the person she had tried to find for more than half of her life or if it was a cruel prank.

  “Where were you born?” Mom asked tentatively.

  Kathy responded with the correct answer.

  That’s when the tears started flowing. Once shed from heartbreak, my mother’s tears now came from the joy of relief. Over and over again, she said, “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  It turns out Kathy had made an inquiry to the Indiana State Department of Health for a medical history. In return, she mistakenly received a letter detailing my mom’s full name, address, and phone number. With that information in hand, Kathy did what all amateur sleuths do these days—she turned to Google, a search that overwhelmed her with pages of links referring to the mother of the original Bachelorette. Included in those links were lots of photos, revealing an uncanny resemblance to the woman who was undoubtedly her mother. After discussing it with her boyfriend, Kathy picked up the phone.

  Just a couple of days later, my mother and Kathy met face-to-face for the first time, realizing that they lived only a few hours apart. I wasn’t able to be there, but as the girl whose name had been changed from Teresa Marie to Kathy described to me, “It was open arms, everywhere!” My family embraced Kathy as one of their own, because that’s what she is.

  Once in turmoil over the cards she had been dealt and her decision about how to play them, my mom was now content with her unanswered prayers. As Helen Keller once said, “The struggle of life is one of our greatest blessings. It makes us patient, sensitive, and Godlike. It teaches us that although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.” It took forty years, but the relief was well worth the wait. My mom is now bonded to a daughter she thought she would never meet and in the process has taught so much to all of us who know her story (myself included). With her help, I learned to keep moving forward in the face of life’s hardships, to know that things happen as they are supposed to, and to be grateful for the bumpy road that leads to happy hearts.

  TAKEN TOO SOON

  Even as a hopeful optimist who attempts to live with a heart full of gratitude, I am also a realist who recognizes the difference between bumpy roads and roads with bumps so abrupt and massive that finding a way over them can seem impossible. Losing a loved one definitely fits into the latter category and is something I experienced firsthand as a teenager when I unexpectedly lost my cousin Chip.

  Chip had a smile that could light up the night and a heart that was even brighter. He was a playful and mischievous soul who could get away with just about anything by batting the enviable eyelashes that framed his beautiful blue eyes. Full of energy and laughter, he was a lover of life—right up until his life came to a sudden end.

  I’ll never forget that day. It was the weekend and I had one goal—to sleep as late as possible. Awaiting the start of my sophomore year of college, I was wasting away as much of the summer as I could before I had to hunker down and figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. I remember the sun blazing through my windows, but I had no intention of coming out from under my warm and cozy covers. That changed in an instant when I heard my mom’s frenzied voice on the phone.

  My grandfather had called to say that my twenty-one-year-young cousin Chip had been involved in an accident during a go-kart race and taken to the ne
arest hospital. After nearly a day of agonizing waiting, we found out that it was just a matter of time before Chip’s body succumbed to his injuries. So, as soon as we could, we made our way to Indiana.

  I remember cautiously approaching Chip’s room in the ICU. I had been warned about his appearance, but nothing could prepare me for what I saw. The swelling of his head was so severe that the man I knew and the cousin I loved was completely unrecognizable. Even though he had had safety on his side with a fire suit and helmet, it just hadn’t been enough to protect his brain against the irreversible damage that occurred during the collision on the Crawfordsville racetrack. Two days later, on June 29, 1992, the machines keeping Chip alive were turned off, and his physical presence in our lives came to an almost unbearable end.

  The final image of him is something my mind will never be able to erase, but the disturbing visual of his frail and unrecognizable body was only a fraction of the reason I was so deeply affected.

  Until that summer, I thought accidents happened to other people. My cousin was in the prime of his life. He was a good person with a good heart, and he had taken every precaution he could to stay safe while following his passion. He was happy. He was alive. He was preparing to propose to his longtime girlfriend and start a family of his own. Then, in what felt like the blink of an eye, his life on earth was over, just as mine could be the next day or the day after that.

  With Chip’s death, I was closer to mortality than ever before—it was frightening. As a young adult, I could comprehend what it meant to die, but I had a profoundly difficult time dealing with the death of a close relative who should’ve been decades away from it. I tried to stay strong for the ones who had known him best and loved him most, but couldn’t always deny the pain and would literally end up in the fetal position. I cried for my loss, but even more than that, I cried for my grandparents, who thought they would pass on before their grandchildren; my cousin, who didn’t get the chance to say good-bye to her only sibling; and my aunt and uncle, who would never again hug the son they had given life to.

  That summer I became even more stifled by caution and fear than I had been for most of my life. I realized more than ever before that, even in moments of assumed safety, the surrounding world was far beyond my control. To this day, it affects my actions as well as my parenting. Even though I try to put the brakes on my fears, they are difficult to overcome when they are buried so deeply into my soul.

  Thankfully, though, that devastating summer also taught me a lot.

  For one, I realized that no matter how fervently you believe in heaven above, or how strong you appear to those around you, nothing can or should prevent you from expressing your anguish when faced with the end of a beautiful life. It isn’t weakness that shows through during emotional expression, but the raw beauty of humanity.

  Another positive effect was the undeniable transformation that took place within our family. Previously disconnected, my mother, her three sisters, and their parents accepted that their vulnerability wasn’t a sign of weakness and opened their hearts in shared grief. Through their struggle, they developed a true bond offering one another a level of unconditional support that they still maintain to this day. Their example showed me that sometimes nature has to rattle your core to help you find your own strength as well as the strength of those who will hold you high above your hurdles.

  Lastly, experiencing death made me understand the treasure of life at a very young age. When I was nineteen, my thoughts revolved around college courses and rushing the best sorority, but after losing Chip, I gained the gift of awareness. Today was a gift. My health was a gift. Every breath I took was a gift. I am the first to admit that I still need constant reminders to slow down and embrace my blessings, often literally, but after losing an angel to heaven too soon, I knew the importance of focusing on the precious gift of the here and now.

  Since that devastating day in 1992, there have been many times I’ve randomly felt my cousin’s presence in a room. I know I won’t have a chance to see him in the flesh again, but in those unexplained moments I am overcome with gratitude for just having known him. In the words of Dr. Seuss: “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened”—and, in remembering the blessing of my cousin, that’s exactly what I do.

  THE BIG PICTURE

  On the heels of the heartbreaking ordeals above, I hesitate to share a story that, looking back, seems so incredibly silly. But just as important as life-altering events are to the way we choose to live, so are the trivial stressors we face on a daily basis. Both influence our choices, attitudes, actions, and levels of happiness, even if they seem completely incomparable in terms of significance.

  January 24, 2013, was one of those seemingly insignificant days. With a looming deadline, I realized that I needed help with my mommy duties and practically begged my mother-in-law to stay with us for a bit. As the quintessential doting grandparent, she happily agreed and headed to our nest in the mountains for what ended up being twelve days. I know many of you may cringe at the thought of your mother-in-law in your home for almost two weeks, but around here her visits are highly anticipated, for multiple reasons.

  First and foremost, Barb is a model mother—very patient, always nurturing, and unconditionally supportive.

  Second, she is an exceptional grandmother. Our children absolutely adore her, so much so that I often hear “No, Mommy, I want Grandma to . . .”

  Third, she is pretty much the perfect homemaker, and she loves it. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a speck of dust in her always white-glove-ready home, a hamper overflowing with dirty clothing, a bed not made, a guest towel out of place, or a full and delicious meal not ready to be devoured when the clock strikes 5:30 p.m. And she treats our home as she does her own, with lots of love and attention.

  We feel truly blessed that Ryan’s parents live only a couple hours away, and we reach out for their help when the need arises, which ends up being at least once a month. We love their company, feel thankful that they can usually get away on a moment’s notice, value the bond they are able to consistently create with their first grandbabies, and know our kids are in some of the most dependable and loving hands possible. For the most part, our visits go smoothly, and this one wasn’t any different—that is, until two days before she was due to head home.

  That morning, I was awakened in the middle of a dream (or, should I say, nightmare) by my sweet baby girl softly saying, “Mommy,” in my ear. I couldn’t get rid of the horrible image my mind had conjured up of Ryan saying a particularly romantic good-bye to a very tall and very pretty girl. The worst part: he looked right at me and did nothing. No remorse.

  I knew it wasn’t real, and Blakesley couldn’t have been sweeter or calmer, but it started my day off on the completely wrong foot.

  In an attempt to shift my dark mood, I held my daughter’s tiny hand as we walked downstairs, in hopes that her grasp would be a conduit for positive energy. Then we headed to the kitchen to get the day started with breakfast and making school lunches.

  As I walked down the stairs, I noticed my mother-in-law struggling with something in the sink. I asked what was wrong. She explained that she was trying to get one of the kids’ cups unstuck from under the little black skirt of the disposal.

  Still foggy from my face-to-face with Ryan and his new friend back in dreamland, I said something to the effect of, “Huh? How’d that happen?”

  I knew it wasn’t something she did on purpose, but after starting off the morning on a bad note, I was frustrated, and the tone of my voice probably conveyed that.

  Even more frustrated than me (considering she had been dealing with the annoyance of this stuck cup), she answered, “Well, I don’t know, Trista.”

  My frustration immediately started to snowball.

  I tried anything and everything I could—including a knife, a saw, a Shop-Vac, and even a Super Glued stick—to get the wedged cup from blocking the sink.

  Nothing worked.

  Wit
h Ryan not returning from an ice-climbing rescue class until the next day, I called some friends to ask for the name of a fair-priced local plumber. I knew my father-in-law would be there later that day, but feeling impatient, I wanted a professional to come in and pull the cup out from under the sink as soon as possible. Having required the help of the pros years ago, I knew it wouldn’t be a cheap visit, which made me even more frustrated. Worse, I felt disrespected—and it killed me.

  It wasn’t the feelings I was having that were beating me down. It was the fact that the feelings were directed at a woman who had such love for our family, and for me, that she had agreed to come to the chaos of my house and offer a kind of support that I couldn’t ask of anyone else.

  A woman I consistently feel I don’t measure up to.

  A woman so kind and thoughtful that I can’t imagine anyone associating her with anything bad. She was an angel, so by the power of my mind’s deduction, I was the devil, and the day just spiraled from there.