“I snuck my younger children out. My 10-year-old and I grabbed the only belongings I had hidden. As we walked quietly to the door, his music stopped! I whispered, ‘FREEZE, DONT MOVE.’ With tears in my eyes I thought this was it, he knew I was escaping. ‘Run, run now!’”
‘I needed to tell, in case I went ‘missing.’ I was terrified. ‘You’ve been talking again, haven’t you?’ I ran into the bathroom. ‘Mom, please come.’ It was now or never. It HAD to happen NOW!’
‘Your dad is going to die. This is a gut-wrencher. You will adopt a child. He will be your brother – the 4th child your dad has with his new wife.’
“Your dad’s wife will die unexpectedly of a drug overdose, followed by your dad to cancer just days later. Before your dad dies, he will sign over custody to you. You will fight tooth and nail through the courts for this child. This is your rock bottom.”
‘I play out the details of that final weekend in my head. Struck by how quickly it was all over. Just like that, she was gone. Gone forever.’
“It intensifies on November 8th. That is the day my soulmate came home for Veterans Day weekend. It was a Thursday evening, as it is this year. She kissed me goodbye, then my life was turned upside down.”
‘She took her last breath. I felt her soul leave her body. She made me promise I would be OK. Armed with a map and her ashes, I set off on a journey of a lifetime.’
“She stared off into the distance, and then turned back to me and smiled. She told me, ‘I want you to go. You need to go. You need to be out there… Nature is your cathedral.’ I will never forget those words.”
‘On the day of their anniversary, he left a note saying ‘Sorry I wasn’t good enough, sorry I was an a**hole. Sorry…’’
“As we got deeper, Lee told me her struggles in life, living where she lives and that her husband committed suicide about 20 years ago.”
