7 Years an Angel

I’m all too familiar with the pain this life knows how to deal. It drives a mean bargain most times and holds all the cards you need. I’ve felt the pain of loss and know all too well the destruction left in the wake of walking out. It is because of this that I have such a hard time building genuine and solid relationships. It is not a concept I am very adept to. I’m a very open person usually but I battle with nurturing a connection with someone.


As I’ve gotten older and learnt how life changes in the flicker of an eye, I’ve become more particular about the people I choose to have relationships with. This wasn’t always the case though.

When I was younger and still in school, it seemed I was making new friends and partying with a different group quicker than some girls go through boyfriends! (I swear high school can be more eventful than Days of Our Lives!) When I became an upper classman it was my turn to guide the freshman through their stages!

I was a member of the dance team (a captain) and took very seriously my roll. This wasn’t some teen movie version of a hazing. The new girls on the team were brought in and introduced when they were still in grade eight. We held practices all summer long before their first day of high school and had camp every summer! This was when the cliques were formed. This was when we choose our little sisters. This was the time in which we made lasting bonds to carry us through the next year of games, dances, all day practices and competition season. This was when I met Lauren.

We all sat in the cafeteria of the school. It was miserably hot. As a seasoned team member I sat with the girls from previous years suitably sizing up the newbies. We were excited. Ecstatic. This was going to be our year. We had a new coach. We had new uniforms. We had new team members. We had it all.

I knew the moment we spoke that she and I would be friends. Lauren was a bubbly person. Easy to get to know and innocent. Jeeze she was innocent. Maybe that is what I loved so much with her. I could forget my already checkered history and just be a girl with her.

We immediately were friends. From our American Eagle jeans to our Birkenstocks, we were two peas in a pod. You can imagine my disappointment when she wouldn’t be attending camp with us because she was on vacation with her family.

Still, Lauren returned, school started, and there was high school antics to be had. I can’t describe all that went on over the time we were friends. Simply because I do not have the space.

There were parties at the university and at friends houses. There was football games with short skirted uniforms and cheerleaders who thought they were better than us. There were boys to break our hearts and there were teachers to drive us mad.

And there was practice. Oh there were lots of practices. After school, before school, and quick 5 am Walmart runs for donuts before a 6 am Saturday session. We worked our butts off. As our routines came together and our moves sharpened so did our friendship.

We talked about everything! We did everything together. For once in my life, I had a friendship that was real and genuine with no strings attached.

She even stuck by me when I walked out on the team. Fed up as captain and unable to handle the spiral affect that was happening I decided that the dance was no longer in my feet. But Lauren never felt that way about our friendship. I still took her and picked her up from practices.

It was February 4, 2006. She’d had her first ever competition and couldn’t wait to tell me all about it. We talked and she told me all the ups and downs for the day. Disappointed about a loss but still her cheery self at having had the experience she’d worked so hard for. She expressed how desperately she wished I hadn’t quit and would come back to the team.

As a stubborn teenager this angered me. To me it seemed my best friend wasn’t supporting my decision! This is solely the most regrettable moment in my life. I told Laurent that I had to cancel our plans for the night as I was sleeping over at my moms.

I went to dinner with my dad, met up with my boyfriend and we went to my moms to watch movies.

Lauren made other plans and continued to call me to come out.

I’ve never in my life wished more I’d just have answered the phone.

Hours later I got the call that has changed my life. When I answered the phone I could tell my girlfriends had been partying and after all it was Saturday night. We tended to get into some sillyness and figured what ever they wanted was about to be some kind of prank in a pathetic attempt to get me to come out.

Immediately I was in shock. This prank was taking it to far. Above the sound of sirens (how were the pulling that off) and behind choked back sobs, I heard two words that were beyond believable. Laurens dead.

Screaming I told them it was a creul joke and hung up the phone. But before I could tell my mom what was going on my phone was ringing again. My heart stopped. Literally I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. This was my best friend. A girl I introduced as my sister. This was the first Saturday in months…MONTHS…that I wasn’t with her. She was having dinner with her dad then going to a friends house. I know this cannot be. This girl is my lifeline in all that happens in the world of high school. I couldn’t have a hair melt down or a jean get too tight without consulting her. This was taking it beyond natural limits.

Finally I answer and immediately start yelling at them. On the other end a level headed (as always) Megan tells me very seriously that they aren’t joking. She tells me where the accident is and that I need to get there as Laurens dad was just pulling up.

The next couple of hours blur through my mind. It is winter and I run out without a coat and in my slops. My mom still is unsure exactly what is going on and quickly hands Stephan (the boyfriend) my coat and says to keep an eye on me. I’ve never driven so fast in my life and a 15 minute drive took under 10 as I sped through our town to the outskirts where my friend lay in the cold.

Call in fate or call in coincidence but as I started my car that night Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus Take the Wheel” came through my speakers. As the sound engulfed my every emotion I knew what they had told me was true. The tears burned hot down my face.

I turned the corner to the road where the accident happened. It was still about a mile and a half up the country street but I could see the flashing emergency lights already. I couldn’t carry on. I stopped the car and climbed out hysterically.

I am not sure what goes through our minds at a point like this. I stood in the middle of the road at night screaming into the nothingness. I fought with every ounce of strength I had as Stephan ushered me back into the car.

He drove the rest of the way and I was out of the car before it even stopped on sight. As I ran towards the over turned car multiple officers stopped me. I can only imagine how I looked and seemed as I flailed and hit whomever approached me. Eventually Laurens stepmom saw me and told them to let me go. I was allowed past the yellow tape but not to the car. She explained what the paramedics and told her and sat me down in the fire truck.

I’m not sure how long we sat there or how many more friends showed up during this time but eventually it was decided all of us would go to the hospital where the driver of the car, Shannon, had been taken for minor injuries.

Over 50 of us sat in the ER triage not knowing where to go or what to do next. We held each other. We cried. We asked a lot of whys.

We were told that Shannon was ok and would be released that night. We gathered together the closest of friends with Shannon and went to IHOP since it was the only place open at 2 am.

The next morning we gathered together at church, went to lunch, then met with an officer from the night before at the accident sight. We walked over and over again the path the car took and listened as we were told what had happened.

They weren’t drinking. They weren’t doing drugs. They weren’t even speeding.

The girls had stopped by McDonalds then took the long way home as they gossiped, phoned boys, and belted out lyrics to all the popular songs.

Shannon took her eyes off the road for a moment. Just a moment as she reached for a new CD. A deer came into the road and froze in her headlights. It was icy and snowy out and Shannon jerked the wheel. The car flipped and rolled and dug into the ditch on Laurens side. Shannon walked away by the grace of God and ran for help. Lauren never suffered and was in God’s arms before the car stopped moving.

After this, I’ve kept my heart on reserve. It took days to accept it and we held a huge memorial. I gave speeches at school about the dangers of driving at night and how we must be extra aware during hunting season of the animals. Nothing brings her back. Only time heals the pain.

A relationship like the one I had with Lauren can only be experienced not explained. She was more than a friend and not a day has gone by that I haven’t thanked God for the time he allowed her to be a part of my life. I learnt that true friendships do exist.

Occasionally when I walk down the street or stand in line at a checkout I will have to do a double take. I still know her smell. It haunts my sleep. Sometimes if I’m lucky I even smell it in a breeze of wind.

I became very close with Shannon after all of this and we are still close although we are thousands of miles apart. Lil Mister and her son FatMac only differ in age by 2 weeks!

Not a day has passed though that I haven’t asked God why her.

So today, I take a moment and remind myself of the beauty God has placed in my life. I thank him for the people close to me and remind myself to always ALWAYS take every moment they are here for granted.

The pain doesn’t go away, it has just formed its own little place in my heart to stay locked away.

Shana..

Lots and Nots of Frineds

I apologize in advance...this turned out really long! Read it though! It's great!!

One of the hardest things about having relocated across the world is the loss in friendships. Since living in South Africa, my husband and I moved quite a few times. We have been blessed to have finally settled in the small town we now are in. We’ve been here for two and a half years. Unfortunately, strong bonded relationships with other people do not just spring up over night. It is a process. It is trial and error.


As a young adult single woman in America, I had so much going for me. I didn’t realize it at the time, but now I see what I left behind. I do not hold regret to this. I left my life there because God showed me that He had more planned for me and that it was here. I thank God for molding me to be a God fearing and God trusting woman.

I had a strong church that believed in me and my faith in God. This was a church that had taken me the first 17 years of my life to find. It was a church where the worship fed my Spirit and the pastors and spiritual leaders fed my Soul. I developed for the first time a personal and deep relationship with Jesus Christ at the steps of that alter. I had friends with whom I conversed and spent time with daily. Friends in Christ with whom I could tell when I was unsure and uplift when they were lost. We could worship together, pray together, and sit unmoving in the awe of the Spirit together. This church taught me to embrace my spiritual gifts and to not be ashamed in the face of others who did not understand. This church prepared me for a relationship with Christ when one day that church wouldn’t be there.

I have a family there who has known me since birth. This doesn’t seem like much until those people are no longer a daily part of your life. My family was my solid ground. No matter how we fought or disagreed I always knew they wanted what was best for me even if they didn’t know what it was. I knew that I was never disgraced in their eyes and I was always accepted even when I didn’t believe it! These people knew the ins and outs of my personality like I knew theirs. Nothing caught us off guard. There was no “learning” period. This family taught me to appreciate every moment with the people you love.

I had friends with whom I had spent years getting to know. Some of these friends we’d come from elementary school together while others were relationships that developed once the freedom of the open road hit (in other words once I was 16 and freely mobile between schools!). These were friends who’d seen me at my worst and at my best. They were the ones I had crazy memories with, some of which we couldn’t even tell the story because we’d laugh to hard. They were the ones who knew in a moments notice that something wasn’t right with me. They were a small group that was thicker than blood at the time. They were friends that taught me what I wanted and NEEDED from a friendship and that which I did not.

I had a culture that I knew. I didn’t have to question what was acceptable. I didn’t have to think about how I might not be able to find something that I was so used to being a normal part of life. I knew the history and I knew what to expect. I wasn’t the odd person out. This culture showed me how to be comfortable being myself in a very judgmental world.

When you make a choice to step into a new world, you make a decision to leave these comforts behind. Sadly, these are all people, places, and things that I took for granted because they were a part of my everyday life for as long as I could remember. They were me and I was them. I’ve now been in South Africa for 3 years and 7 months. I’m married with a child and a second on the way. I work and study here. I have a church here. I am still the different one. I am still the outsider.

In the small town where we live I am The American. This is genuinely the title given to me. If talking to someone you know, you would say I saw Shana, The American, at Spar yesterday. In America I was still an American, but I was just Shana. I wasn’t the one with the accent. I wasn’t the one to ask questions to compare football and rugby, baseball and cricket. I didn’t need to defend my stance on inter-racial marriages or my views on the war in Iraq. I never got asked to describe differences in family life between a boyfriend and my family nor the foods that his mom cooked and my mom cooked. These are all new territories. I NEVER thought I’d have to defend just being me and explain that I WILL NOT ever completely change and leave who I was to become complete in the views of a different culture.

Let me just note that Hubby Dearest and I do work very hard to blend our cultures. A person will think that we cannot be so different, both Christian and that our children do not face animosity here as we are both white (South Africa is still a very race oriented country as so much of each culture is centered around their race!). However, we struggle with the differences of our cultures, values, and beliefs. We differ on discipline and political stands. There are even family values that we’ve both had to merge. And yes even our children are questioned as to how do we raise them, English or Afrikaans. Again, I will not completely leave who I was but I do give. We find our medium.

Almost 4 years down the road, I’m still the outsider. Now my husband and I are placed in a new and VERY SMALL town and we’re both outsiders. The only difference is that we’re like celebrity outsiders (insert Miranda Lambert’s Famous in a Small Town). This brings me to the point of meaningful relationships outside of our immediate family that is here with us. I had forgotten the ups and downs of this road. When I first came to South Africa it was quite simple. My husband and I lived where he had lived for 7 years. He had the friends and I just joined in. Some I liked and some I didn’t and that was that. I didn’t need to search. They were provided for me. In a sense this was great because I had enough transition as it was! But when we both moved, we had to start from scratch. This can sometimes be quite tiresome and even painful.

It is a lot like dating. You put your best face on, get out there and give it a go. Sometimes it is stale. These are ‘bread friends.’ Like bread that your brother left the bag open on. It would still fulfill its purpose but yet you walk away still feeling like you’ve lacked something.

Other times it down right burns! You meet a couple of friends and they seem wonderful, great at first! Much like that wonderful looking burrito that the person at the table next to you ordered in the Mexican restaurant. So you tell the waiter you want that! It looks great and smells great. It even has some really cool name that makes you drool as it rolls of the waiters tongue. That is how the ‘Chili friends’ are. At first they seem like the perfect ones. They are fun and exciting and that first couple of times you do something together you walk away having a feeling of fulfillment. This could be it! But just like that burrito something sneaks up. Sometimes it’s early on, other times you’re half way through before you realize that your mouth is ON FIRE!! You quickly reach for the bread, ‘bread friends’, to drown out this burn. What is it? Oh, yea, that word that sounded so great was translation for ‘burn you’re a$$’ chili. You immediately regret ever ordering it. Nothing takes it away. That is how these friends are. They seem perfect but sure enough you end up in pain.

Sometimes your husband finds a friend that he feels is great. They can hang out and chat and whatever men do, but you can’t stand him! It happens vice versa too. I call these Avocado friends. Typically an avo is something one person loves and the next hates. This is also terrible because it usually ends up in fighting every time said spouse will be around that friend. There are the single friends whom are great in small portions (like dark chocolate) but they never mix with your daily life as milk chocolate would. And the list goes on.

This has been our experience over the last couple of years. There have been all out wars over whom we’re going to be around. Each of refusing someone for some or other reason. There have been couples whom it was great with for a time until one of realizes what the other one has been trying to show us…that they’re ‘Chili friends.’ There have been tears as I realize that a female I thought I could trust was the one trashing my name around town. There have been laughs as we go home having felt so awkward like on a blind date!

I’m thankful for my husband because he has stuck by through this transition. Some of you will say well obviously but heck it is a long road!! It is a dark tunnel at times. So dark we couldn’t even see each other was our misery of loneliness. As humans we need friends. It is in our nature. No matter how much I can tell my husband I need a girl friend to spill it out too and he needs a guy friend to just be a guy with! But at the end of this dark tunnel is light, ‘Sun Friends.’ (They’re called this because they are light and warmth on cold days, they are a reason to frolic and have fun. You always leave happy you were there.) That is what I realized last weekend at a wedding….





Us on the left, wedding couple, more friends and in the all black is Mrs. Paramedic (Mrs.P) 

 
There was a wedding for two friends. It has been a long road with this couple. My husband and I both are having been at fault for some dark times. But at the end the friendship has carried through and we are all adult enough to turn our backs to the past and look forward. For this I am thankful because I truly cannot imagine life without these people any longer. These friends are the light. Two couples in particular. The other is getting married next weekend. I am blessed to have been friends with them to witness these magical days in their lives!! Last weekend there was laughter, there was a little nudging (okay I’m pregnant and at a wedding maybe I wasn’t the best attendee! My poor husband sometimes! :-/) and there was honesty. We were all ourselves. At the end of the night when we were all ready to make the 30km drive home, we were all too good of friends to allow friends to risk the drive. Even if it meant 30km took us 2 ½ hours, 5 stops, a tow, brake failure, and quite a bit of fighting. We knew that is what friends are for…doing what is right even in the face of threats. Even if it wasn’t what the particular couple wanted.




Oh yea we're that cool (notice the time!)


As we drove home that night, all the couples mixed up in each others cars, we all realized one very important fact. We’re willing to go just about anywhere and to any length for each other. For the first time since being in South Africa, I finally felt ‘home.’

I was told a story from the night before. One couple in particular (the ones getting married next weekend!) was one of our very first friends in our town. The man is a paramedic and so he and Hubby Dearest met on duty at accident scenes and struck a friendship. The wife is an amazing, God loving, woman who always seems to bring out the best in me! I’ve enjoyed their company since day one. I’ve also been blessed to be so close with them at a time when my son was very sick! Mr. Paramedic has even promised to ride with me when I go into labor if he is not on duty (hospital is an hour away without traffic) as Hubby Dearest will need to follow in our vehicle and I don’t want to be alone! The night before the wedding this couple and some others were having a braai. Another friend asked Mr. Paramedic where I was from. After an hour of confusion and running every place he could think of through his head he finally stated he didn’t know what she was talking about because ‘Shana is South African.’ Mrs. Paramedic laughed and reminded him that they were talking about my accent and that I was from America. We are so close that they don’t hear my accent any longer as others do. To them I am ‘Just Shana.’ Secretly that night when I got home I cried tears of joy. For me this was the ultimate acceptation. To them I am no longer an outsider.

That is the groom listening to LJ and the one behind him is another friend (who used to be my boss!!)

At 3 am, two of the wives/fiancés and I sat in the lounge together waiting on our men to finish the chauffeur job. We laughed as we discussed how wonderful it would have been for a McDonalds to be in our town (or anything 24 hours!) and how much the next that morning was going to suck as we all had to be up in 4 or less hours. I looked into the faces of these women and realized their love for each other, their men and us was what mattered. We don’t have the history of years together, but one day we will have. We have the future together. We discuss the fears and joys of raising our children (or future children). The hopes we have and dreams. We promise to be there and uplift each other.

It’s been a long hard road to get here today. I don’t have the numbers of friends I had back in the States. I don’t have my birth family at hand. I don’t have all of the familiarity. But I have true friendships now. I have understanding friendships. I have family who’ve been there through some pretty rough waters. And I have a family and a home that we’re working to make our own. For me, I’m pretty appreciative.




It was the end of the night and only close friends were left and yes we are like this all the time! We do not judge!



Absent Motherhood

Oh, how I quarreled over writing today’s blog. I sought out every possible excuse for myself and exasperated every possible angle of deception. However, my self imposed battle was lost and I decided for my own sanity it was time I faced the ugly truth of this long lurking demon.


There is no sugar coating it. For what I will share is truly a demon of all circumstances. I envision this entity now fat and content sitting on a lazy boy made up of years of my internal struggle, my condemnation, my guilt, my anguish, my hatred, my judgment, and my questions of self, family, and God. This demon is now settled in his place in my life. He has a past with me of over 20 years. The majority of what is in my cognitive mind in which he can recall at will. My life is consistently scarred by the small cuts he had made into the background.

I’ve tried to say I’ve dealt with all of it. I’ve claimed in public that I now understand the truth. I can put on a face and falsify that I have accepted the reality.

This is all a lie. I have, although, had enough and I am officially evicting this demon from my life. He will no longer take a residence with me.

My birth mother and father married young. Truthfully, they were the same age as Dear Hubby and myself when we married. F (birth mother) was the same age as I was when Lil Mister was born. The biggest difference however is that when I was 19 marrying the man of my dreams it was my first marriage and Lil Mister was my first child. F on the other hand took my father as her second husband at 19 and I was her second child. The first of which she already no longer had contact with (both husband and child.)

Oh, the deception this woman must have spun in her web. The filth that spewed from her lips in her mastery as she convinced my father that he was different. The disgust as I was formed from her. The lies of it all.

Then, tragedy fate struck. It was like clockwork. It was as if it had all been planned. F and my dad had separated and one morning I was left with my father and all of my stuff as she drove off. At 22, my father stood with a 1 year old girl and no wife. I praise him for the pieces of himself he had to strive to put back together as he made a home and a life for us.

I am sure the questions that have formed in my mind over the years have also plagued him on many sleepless nights. Nothing and no one can quench the thirst that will overwhelm you as you ask ‘what did I do’. There is not a person that can come into your life and replace such an overbearing form of rejection. No number of years passed will convince you that it IS better this way.

F left us. F left him. F left me. Judge A$$ ruled that I was to go with F at the age of 3 for two weeks to visit her family. I have bits of memories from said hiatus with F. They are few to say the most and take but a minute of recall. I do not remember her face or anyone else. I do remember a baby. Apparently my brother by the third man she’d caught in her web.

I returned to my father and F never looked back. In 20 years, there has been no contact, no letters, no phone calls, and no surprise visits.

Dad remarried. She is now my mom to this day. I am thankful to her but we are not as close as we may have been. My demon prevents this.

Around the age of 13 I began to get curious. I would look for her online. I’ve done this every since. For 10 years I have searched her name getting as far as a year back on information and then stopping because I need to pay for more updated information. I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t take my feet off and jump. 10 years of the heart racing feeling of wonder. Each time I search I find an article or a previous address or relative. I’ve phone to get no answer or a person who claims they don’t know F or they don’t speak English. I’ve envisioned myself getting into my car and driving to the address’ on my list until finally I arrive at her house.

In my dream, I would walk up to the door on a hot summer evening. She would answer and at first have no idea who I am. When I told her my name she would start to cry. I imagined she would embrace me as if she has missed me her entire life, as if this is as big a dream come true for her as it was for me. She would invite me in and we would sit in the backyard, drinking ice tea, and catching up all the time we’d missed. I’d meet her family and be accepted and we’d all live happily ever after.

No, my home life wasn’t bad. My mom and dad were wonderful parents and I have so many cherished memories. Still, the one who bore me had left and I’d always asked why. We were always listed in the phonebook so I assume she actually could have found me very easily. But never did….

So here we sit. I am 23 years old with my second child on the way and married for 3 years. That is 2 years longer than I’ve any record of her marriages lasting and I’m still my children’s mom and ALWAYS will be.

I wish I could admit that I’ve stopped the search or at least gotten the balls to pay for her current address (I guess I feel if I stumble upon it for free then it was meant to be but I’m pushing things if I pay…) but I cannot say either of these. Just a few months back I feel succumb to the trap of needing wanting to know. I found out that about 3 ½ years ago, almost 1 month to the day, before I left America for South Africa, the house she’d been living in had burnt down. She survived because her dog woke her up. There was a newspaper article and it had a picture of her. I printed it. For days I sat staring at her face. I cried everyday. We look so much alike. Eventually I had to put it away.

All the questions come back. Why didn’t she love me? Was it hard for her to leave? Has she ever tried to find me? Why weren’t we good enough?

Then I think of my son. I grow a hatred for F at the idea of putting someone so small, innocent, and incapable through something so tragic painful.

I realize that even if I ever did find her, things would not go like they do in my imagination. There is the chance I would show up just to hear her say I never wanted you. I couldn’t or didn’t love you. I never tried to find you. I would listen to her reasons and be overcome with more grief and anger. There is even the chance that she would say she had tried but my dad wouldn’t allow it. Then I have even more questions that I don’t want to have.

I wish I could say I’m fine. No, today I secretly cry sometimes when I consider the rejection. Today I have an overbearing sense of need to control EVERYTHING that is going on in my life (and yes I realize this is impossible and that it affects my husband…we’re I’m working on that one!) for fear that if someone else is in control it will not work out. And yes, I am indefinitely scared that anyone I attach myself too is eventually going to leave me, especially women (a blog on my relationship up’s and down’s and the struggle to be a daughter to my MIL is a whole blog in and of itself…because she is truly amazing!). Thus, my reason excuse as to why I have left every meaningful relationship in my life (my parents and family, friends, churches).

I guess I’m a work in progress but there is one thing I understand more than ever now. After having my own children, I understand the deep seeded necessity that is your mother. No matter how amazing another woman is. No matter how much another mom loves you. There is an understated drive in us that fuels a need want for at the least knowledge of that person. I say want because we are capable to survive without this desire being fulfilled. My children NEED me because I WANT them. Although I grew up in a two parent home there was a parent missing and I understand now the fear that so many adults walk around with. I also understand now, even if sometimes I cannot accept it, that it was not me. I could not have done anything to drive her away. It was an issue within herself. Whether it was hard for her or not I don’t know…for me it would be impossible. I’ve learnt so much respect for what my father went through and love him so much more than I can express for building the life he did for us. I respect him for moving on no matter how destructive it felt to himself. I respect and love my mom for stepping into a role that she didn’t have to. I thank her for loving me as her own. But the most precious lesson gift I’ve received from all of this, is knowing I am NOT F. I am me. I love my children and will NOT leave. For years I feared it was genetic and that I’d do the same as her. I am NOT F. For that I can sleep.