thank you JJ... at the time of her former husband's death, she was living with another fellow, they had been together for five years, he was away taking a course ..

three nights before the death of her former husband, i went over to see how everthing was going..... she wouldn't turn around from washing dishes.... i said 'what's wrong, what's wrong ?'.. she turned around, tears pouring, she had just had a long distance phone call from her common law partner....

he had gotten married to someone he'd met while away.....

In more ways than these she has been through hell and back again... they each have ..

Speaking of these things, is like opening old wounds ... i'm not sure if i want to...

[ December 17, 2005, 02:12 PM: Message edited by: norma ]

Norma, your daughter went through so much at such an early age. Yet she showed amazing compassion and forgiveness for the father of her children. You taught her well.

Norma, your daughter sounds like a strong, compassion young woman. May her life hold only good things from now on.

Again Jackie and Bluebird, thank you for your words....

on a brighter note, under the same topic, i sure remember that at 16, until maybe in my late twenties, none of us ever used the word 'sex' outloud. "It" was referred to as "It".

Chatty Lady, it must have been terribly hard losing the one you loved when you were so young. Did he die in Vietnam?

The stories all of you are telling really touch me. So much heartache, foolishness of young love and yet all so growth producing.

Norma, my guess is that your daughter is destined/called to do something truly spectacular with her life. The things that have happened to her, as she processes them, will bring her beautufil soul to a place where she can contribute in a wonderful way, and many will be blessed by it.

Searcher, I keep thinking of the love you let go to experience others, and now regret doing that. I longed for a love like that when I was that age. It never happened. I guess I had things to learn from other people along the way. Had I found that kind of love early and stuck with it, I would have missed out on learning so many valuable, and yes painful things. I would not have become who I am now. And I like me now. So my guess is that it was not a mistake for you to turn away. You had other things to learn. Maybe next time you will be ready for that kind of love.

I was in love at 16 too. With the best looking guy in the world, but he went away to college. He wrote, but to me he was simply gone. I married someone else at 17. He came to the wedding and promised my new husband I would be his one day.

He stayed in contact and eventually married a girl who claimed to be pregnant with his child. He got in med school and I got divorced. He left his wife and child to marry me, but I married someone else and he cried.

The second husband was abusive and he traveled cross country several times to rescue me, never expecting more. I divorced the abusive husband and by then he was a multi-millionaire doctor with a plane that he flew to me. He was giving up everything he had worked for to get a divorce and marry me when I married my third husband.

Again, he stayed in contact. Eventually he discovered that the child he married for was not his, but he never told anyone except me and the boy's mother.

We were planning a class reunion when I came home one day to the news that he and his wife had both been killed in a plane crash. I was so sad. I couldn't stop crying and I wound up divorced again. I planned never to remarry.

The next Christmas Eve, the boy he raised who had a three year old daughter by then discovered the truth of his birth, went to the gravesite, called friends to pick him up, and shot himself in the stomach. Because it was Christmas Eve and the friends were delayed, the boy we had given up so much for bled to death on the grave of the only father he had ever known. He left his three year old daughter to deal with his death every Christmas for the rest of her life.

For a long time I was angry and all of that consumed me. But now it is in my heart, but not in my life. And I've discovered that there is love after loss.

smile

[ December 18, 2005, 04:34 PM: Message edited by: smilinize ]

Smile, your story brought tears to my eyes. The way you tell it is so beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

Fleeting love.... how sad.
Just want to hug you.... ((((HUG))))

Smile, what a sad and touching story. So you are okay now? You have love in your life now?

It really seems as we can learn so much from all this horrible stuff. Is your anger gone? It can take such a long time for the anger to go away. One of my problems was not acknowledging that I was angry. Anger was a sin when I was a kid, so of course I didn't believe I had any. I was wrong. I had been calling it something else, something that was not considered a sin.

Love to you. May your heart heal completely.