Hello it's me

I will know when I am with that special someone when almost everything we have to say to one another is clear.  No pretense, no hiding, or hidden agendas.  I have spent a lot of time getting to know who and what I am, and I am thinking he has been doing the same.


For too long I have been telling myself what is not right about me and lately I've been trying to turn that self loathing talk around.  You see, it's not that I am negative by nature....in fact it's very much the opposite.  I have the ability to naturally get so high from some concept or love that I can remember what it felt like to float and soar on those clouds that I seeded with my happiness.  Anything less pales in comparison.


I want you to know how much I believe not only in my ability to partner someone but that I have waited for it to be special.......not perfect.....but unique to the resonance of my being as well as yours.  I've been waiting to make you laugh and to fill your life with special moments. 


I used to think that all I had to do was grow up and I would meet that special someone and live happily ever after.  I attempted a few times to make the most out of barely anything.....all the while convincing myself that this in fact would work.  Well, it didn't and that's ok.


All that I am is a gathering of those steps....all those days of putting one foot in front of the other and sometimes falling hard........sometimes staying down, convinced that I could not possibly start over yet one more time.  I am ready to shine for me as well as for you.  I've been waiting for a true soul, friend, lover, companion, confidante to appear so that I could finally show you and myself that I know better now.  


I told myself that I would no longer accept excuses for someone that wasn't all that interested in me just so that I wouldn't be alone.  How many nights alone did I spend, telling myself that at least this was peaceful.  Well I am full of peace now....and this is what I have to offer.......


An open and willing heart.....a natural curiousity about  myself and the world around me....the ability to respond to your  needs as well as my own....let's not forget my communication skills.....my love and passion for music.....cooking...books.....growing plants....fostering hope in those that are in trouble .......kindness....trust.....and romance......time for you and whatever the future holds......


No matter what fear I may ever feel about anything, please know that in most cases I've forged ahead into the abyss.  What I know I will gladly share and what I don't I will always try to listen.  For the first time in a long time I hear someone that makes sense to me and that is so very exciting to me.  


I didn't mind being alone for the longest time but now I want to share......I don't feel the need to be cautious, to wait, to prepare.....hell I've been getting this ready for quite a long time now.  I wanted a better partner than I knew existed and so I tried to grow into a better person....someone that my future love could depend on and have a deep meaningful existence with.  Is it too soon to state any of this?  I don't think so, cause you hear my heart already and know when I'm grinning like the Cheshire Cat.  


For so long I thought my light was barely there.....that nothing much mattered...I told myself the most unbelievable lies so that I wouldn't hurt so very deeply.  So I'm going to see what this is all about.......take a chance.....throw my light around.....I think you get the message and I may be stating the obvious but I get the feeling that's alright with you too. 

I was the Shabbes Goy of Sterling Place and Utica Ave. by Joe Velarde

Thank you Dawn for sending me this beautiful story........I just had to share it!

I was the Shabbes Goy of Sterling Place and Utica Ave. by Joe Velarde(Joe Velarde became the fencing coach of Columbia University in the 1940's-50s and was an early advocate of civil rights in sports, eventually retiring to California.) Snow came early in the winter of 1933 when our extended Cuban family moved into the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn . I was ten years old. We were the first Spanish speakers to arrive, yet we fit more or less easily into that crowded, multicultural neighborhood. Soon we began learning a little Italian, a few Greek and Polish words, lots of Yiddish and some heavily accented English. I first heard the expression 'Shabbes is falling' when Mr. Rosenthal refused to open the door of his dry goods store on Bedford Avenue . My mother had sent me with a dime to buy a pair of black socks for my father. In those days, men wore mostly black and Navy blue. Brown and gray were somehow special and cost more. Mr. Rosenthal stood inside the locked door, arms folded, glaring at me through the thick glass while a heavy snow and darkness began to fall on a Friday evening. "We're closed, already", Mr.Rosenthal had said, shaking his head, "can't you see that Shabbes is falling? Don't be a nudnik! Go home." I could feel the cold wetness covering my head and thought that Shabbes was the Jewish word for snow. My misperception of Shabbes didn't last long, however, as the area's dominant culture soon became apparent; Gentiles were the minority. From then on, as Shabbes fell with its immutable regularity and Jewish lore took over the life of the neighborhood, I came to realize that so many human activities, ordinarily mundane at any other time, ceased, and a palpable silence, a pleasant tranquility, fell over all of us. It was then that a family with an urgent need would dispatch a youngster to "get the Spanish boy, and hurry." That was me. In time, I stopped being nameless and became Yussel, sometimes Yuss or Yusseleh. And so began my life as a Shabbes Goy, voluntarily doing chores for my neighbors on Friday nights and Saturdays: lighting stoves, running errands, getting a prescription for an old tante, stoking coal furnaces, putting lights on or out, clearing snow and ice from slippery sidewalks and stoops. Doing just about anything that was forbidden to the devout by their religious code. Friday afternoons were special. I'd walk home from school assailed by the rich aroma emanating from Jewish kitchens preparing that evening's special menu. By now, I had developed a list of steady "clients," Jewish families who depended on me. Furnaces, in particular, demanded frequent tending during Brooklyn 's many freezing winters. I shudder remembering brutally cold winds blowing off the East River . Anticipation ran high as I thought of the warm home-baked treats I'd bring home that night after my Shabbes rounds were over. Thanks to me, my entire family had become Jewish pastry junkies. Moi? I'm still addicted to checkerboard cake, halvah and Egg Creams (made only with Fox's Ubet chocolate syrup). I remember as if it were yesterday how I discovered that Jews were the smartest people in the world. You see, in our Cuban household we all loved the ends of bread loaves and, to keep peace, my father always decided who would get them. One harsh winter night I was rewarded for my Shabbes ministrations with a loaf of warm challah (we pronounced it "holly") and I knew I was witnessing genius! Who else could have invented a bread that had wonderfully crusted ends all over it -- enough for everyone in a large family? There was an "International" aspect to my teen years in Williamsburg . TheSternberg family had two sons who had fought with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade in Spain . Whenever we kids could get their attention, they'd spellbind us with tales also introduced us to a novel way of thinking, one that embraced such humane ideas as 'From each according to his means and to each according to his needs'. In retrospect, this innocent exposure to a different philosophy was the starting point of a journey that would also incorporate the concept of Tzedakah in my personal guide to the world. In what historians would later call The Great Depression, a nickel was a lot of mazuma and its economic power could buy a brand new Spaldeen, our local name for the pink-colored rubber ball then produced by the Spalding Company. The famous Spaldeen was central to our endless street games: stickball and punchball or the simpler stoop ball. One balmy summer evenings our youthful fantasies converted South Tenth Street into Ebbets Field with the Dodgers' Dolph Camilli swinging a broom handle at a viciously curving Spaldeen thrown by the Giants' great lefty, Carl Hubbell. We really thought it curved, I swear. Our neighbors, magically transformed into spectators kibitzing from their brownstone stoops and windows, were treated to a unique version of major league baseball. My tenure as the resident Shabbes Goy came to an abrupt end after Pearl Harbor Day, December 7, 1941. I withdrew from Brooklyn College the following day and joined the U.S. Army. In June of 1944, the Army Air Corps shipped me home after flying sixty combat missions over Italy and the Balkans. I was overwhelmed to find that several of my Jewish friends and neighbors had set a place for me at their supper tables every Shabbes throughout my absence, including me in their prayers. What mitzvoth! My homecoming was highlighted by wonderful invitations to dinner. Can you imagine the effect after twenty-two months of Army field rations? As my post-World War II life developed, the nature of the association I'd had with Jewish families during my formative years became clearer. I had learned the meaning of friendship, of loyalty, and of honor and respect. I discovered obedience without subservience. And caring about all living things had become as natural as breathing. The worth of a strong work ethic and of purposeful dedication was manifest. Love of learning blossomed and I began to set higher standards for my developing skills, and loftier goals for future activities and dreams. Mind, none of this was the result of any sort of formal instruction; my yeshiva had been the neighborhood. I learned these things, absorbed them actually says it better, by association and role modeling, by pursuing curious inquiry, and by what educators called "incidental learning" in the crucible that was pre-World War II Williamsburg. It seems many of life's most elemental lessons are learned this way. While my parents' Cuban home sheltered me with warm, intimate affection and provided for my well-being and self esteem, the group of Jewish families I came to know and help in the Williamsburg of the 1930s was a surrogate tribe that abetted my teenage rite of passage to adulthood. One might even say we had experienced a special kind of Bar Mitzvah. I couldn't explain then the concept of tikkun olam, but I realized as I matured how well I had been oriented by the Jewish experience to live it and to apply it. What a truly uplifting outlook on life it is to be genuinely motivated "to repair the world." In these twilight years when my good wife is occasionally told, "Your husband is a funny man," I'm aware that my humor has its roots in the shticks of Second Avenue Yiddish Theater, entertainers at Catskill summer resorts, and their many imitators. And, when I argue issues of human or civil rights and am cautioned about showing too much zeal, I recall how chutzpah first flourished on Williamsburg sidewalks, competing for filberts (hazelnuts) with tough kids wearing payess and yarmulkes. Along the way I played chess and one-wall handball, learned to fence, listened to Rimsky-Korsakov, ate roasted chestnuts, read Maimonides and studied Saul Alinsky. I am ever grateful for having had the opportunity to be a Shabbes Goy. Aleichem Sholom Mario Cuomo, Colin Powell & Pete Hamill were also shabbos goyim I highly recommend a related book by the above Pete Hamill "Snow in August"

Charlie and the perilous journeys

I have been thinking a lot about you lately.  On your birthday I lit a candle for you.  I have to tell you that I am tempted to pull out my trunk and find the letters you wrote to me so long ago.  I was going to write this to you in the absolute middle of my grief about you but I waited because I wanted to write more than just what I was feeling at that second.


I remember in the beginning you were just my best friend's little brother.  While we were talking about boys and losing our virginity ( her first) you were outside playing army in the bushes.  I was an extended family member by the sheer amount of time I spent in your parents home.  I was always hugging all of you totally ignoring how uncomfortable it made all everyone.  Back then I just took what I needed and deposited a hug to balance it all out.


We went to your parents' cabin in Lake Tahoe.  I remember the seance we did and how wide your eyes were across from my mine, your hand firm, my squeeze to reassure you so no one would know that you were scared.  You weren't my friend then, we were still miles apart.  You were still a little boy to me, someone that teased and got in the way.


After graduation I moved into your sister's room and we saw each other more often.  I remember the day I got a letter from my father and I don't remember what twisted thing he wrote but I needed to process it with someone and your sister wasn't around.  So I knocked on your door and dumped it on you, thrusting the letter into your hand to read.  That, I think, was the beginning of our friendship.  So funny how I thought all of your family was so perfect when you were actually more wounded than I was...but that was our secret later that you told me.


I remember sitting in your room ..........all those Pepsi cans from around the world on your wall.......listening to YES and Pink Floyd.....explaining things to your endless questions.....your mom making your dad come and knock on the door to probably make sure we weren't having sex.  How we laughed, we were so much closer than that in thought and soul.  You weren't mine to touch.  You were my friend and I held that to such a higher regard.  


You woke me up one night and told me to get dressed.  We walked down the stairs and you knew where all the creaks would be, giggling like idiots till our stomach hurt once we got outside.  Walking on a star filled cascading night stoned out of our minds talking always talking..........I thought i saw people up ahead of us and they disappeared.....totally freaked out ......it was August and the heavens were putting on a show .......your friends were who I saw and they had laid down on someone's lawn and we almost tripped over them.  Laughter always more laughter........you always telling me to say something else that was profound.  


I have pictures of you with your arm in a sling broken from your skateboard always with that 2 liter of Pepsi.  You always had a twinkle in your eye when we looked at each other like we were always sharing a private joke....what was that?  A perilous journey would throw you into a huge grin whenever I said it to you.....of course we didn't know how perilous it was to grow up and fall in love with the wrong people did we?  Or to become the adults, the parents, the ones to respond.


I remember when every time your sister invited me to her house my ex boyfriend was always there and you bailed me out each time cause you understood how unfair it was to be manipulated by those you were supposed to trust....how when i arrived I really had no idea HE would be there.....You made so many things more bearable for me and whenever I tried to save you it was never enough.....my words would only sooth for a short time and then you would get sucked away from me again like our hands not able to stay clasped in a hurricane.


I remember when you meet Jennifer.  You and Huff coming back from that moving job and your face all flushed cause the most beautiful girl you had ever seen talked to you and gave you her number right?  Little did you know she had no soul.......she sucked the life out of you slowly like the way a snake digests it's meal.  So excited were we all that you had finally met 'someone' that we didn't see the danger lurking in her dark soul-less eyes, how she drew you in to her sexual lair only to punish you for believing she was an answer to your prayers. I remember the Christmas Eve I showed up at your parents house unannounced and your mother throwing her arms around me hugging me tight and saying thank god you re hear please please talk to him........It is so very bad ...........and I was thinking how could I fix anything but she sent you outside to me and we walked in the cold San Jose night for hours and you told me how you wanted your wife to love you and need you .........you told me how mean she was......and I tried ot infuse you with the hope that if she s not the right one that there was someone that would come along that would love you and be proud to be your wife and you believed me but I still didn't know how bad it all was, did I. Yes, I knew about how much she hated our friendship.......how she broke the wedding gift I gave you both.....how she tortured you for coming to my wedding reception......how I believed your lie about her not feeling well enough to attend so I sent you home with champagne that she broke because it was from me.  I knew about the phone calls she made to you at your job threatening to take your baby and never be seen again..........all the fights......how the abuse went on and on........but no one knew did they how you learned at a young age to take all of that abuse and blame yourself........how damaged you were through no fault of your own.  


I remember driving up to Lake of the Pines to see you and your daughter finally telling you I was coming up there no matter what to check on you after your divorce.  Walking in to the house and the living room being filled with your own warped structures of beer cans and Jack Daniels bottles......not just a few but the entire room screaming of your pain and inability to deal with anything....the kitchen filled to overflowing with garbage.  Nothing made sense because I still didn't know everything did I but you trusted me enough to let me in.......so I promised you I wouldn't clean anything......I gave your daughter and mine a bath, a story and tucked them into bed, sitting with them until they fell asleep....coming into the living room to find you half drunk.......listening to you pour out your pain until you passed out......then cleaning........bagging up.......hefting out so many bags of cans and bottles it's a miracle you slept through it but I worked through the night so that when the girls woke up they danced like little fairy princesses in the clean house.....the look on your face when you awoke and saw I had dismantled your tribute to being broken and shattered........the conversation we had when the girls were playing in the bedroom and I told you this is no longer about you and YOUR pain ......how your daughter needs you.......how it is insane that you got full custody of her only to make her live in a place that she couldn't ever bring her friends........I pulled words out of the air twisting and weaving to try and make you see what had to be done when you re a parent no matter how much pain you're in. 


I left you to go back to piecing together the life I had just broken and we drifted apart.  I always thought you could deal with it.......that you would find love.......that you would heal and would stop.........Remember going up Almaden and drinking tequila and again all the laughter........when you finally told me how much you were in love with me........that I was stunned that the words came out of your mouth....and as much as I love you I couldn't be with you........you were my best friend and in so many ways that was better than all the complications.....


You didn't make it through and I miss you.  I hate that we ll never sit down and laugh together about all those crazy times we had together....I miss how much you trusted me that you finally told me what broke you inside.......Sometimes I am back in your room in your parents house and we' re listening to music and I m telling you about the music and you are glowing brighter and brighter till I think I am going to go blind from the light that shined from with in you and your smile.  I was not the one your mother should have protected you from because I would never cross a boundary that was so clear between us....


Forever you are in my heart whenever I get too complicated in my head I hear you telling me to say something intense again ..........I remember your friends taking us to Santa Cruz to spend the night and me still such the New Yorker not understanding how cold it was going to be there and not bringing a warm enough sweatshirt........how you elevated me in a place in front of your friends that I had some kind of magical knowledge to impart if only they would listen......


If I ever find your daughter I promise to tell her about you ......the you that I knew that she would have loved to have seen.......still so young and strong on your skateboard......forever sucking down that Pepsi waiting for the next adventure to show up. 

Twenty years ago....

Twenty years ago I was 28 years old.  I was in an unhappy, stagnant marriage.  I was sexually frustrated and with a partner that was so uncommunicative it was like pulling teeth to get him to tell me anything of importance.  What I remember most about being with him was his statement to nearly everything,  "Just don't worry about it".  


And so before my ten year anniversary with this man I ran back to San Jose, California.  A place where I felt magic within the fog and the building of storms.....where I learned about love and family....where I conceived both of my children.  I felt at home there, knew the roads and had a good feel for the people....I felt I belonged...I understood it there.


I took my daughter, my books and my albums and moved in with my then best friend Patty.  I was terrified but I can tell you I never felt more alive.  I got the wrong jobs but met tons of people.  I dated men and refused to stay with someone that could not or would not sexually satisfy me.  I learned that going to a bar for me, was not a group activity.  I didn't sit and wait for someone to make my night.  I had enough confidence to just be myself and talk to nearly everyone.  


I learned to stand on my own feet, sexually, emotionally, as well as some what financially.  I learned who I could rely on and kept moving ahead, sure and shaky toward something that I believed in.....to live in a place filled with love and light and laughter.


I had glimpses of it with Dylan's father.....Heady, intoxicating passion that made me crazy high with his love and depths of despair when I couldn't be with him.  Hours of being loved by him seemed to fill me with wonder only to have it change so much when he drank.  I didn't understand how that disease worked and I really thought if I only loved him a little more, followed him a bit further,  believed his lies a touch longer....that I would have the love and the family I so craved.


I tried with all of my soul to make something out of so little.....clearly I remember most of it.  One night we were with a group of people and night had come and someone built a huge bonfire.  I remember walking up toward someone sitting on top of a picnic table.  I couldn't see who it was but I could feel him.  I was drawn to him like a moth to a flame.  Closer and closer I walked to him....my heart beating hard, my thighs tingling , everything on fire with anticipation of sexual excitement.  Conflict boiled within me as I was in a relationship still ......but I continued walking toward him, his back to me, and when I got to him......I said,  'Hey"........


He turned and I could feel him and his hand touched mine and I was home.......I was connected.... I was there.  It was Dylan's father.  That taught me that no matter I felt about us being together on the deepest level I was with him.


I lost my way during that relationship.  Part of it was his alcoholism and my lack of insight as to what was really happening with him.  As I've said before, he was on his way out of this life before I met him, we just didn't know it yet.  I would break up with him only to feel so alone and bereft that of course when he contacted me, more together and sober, I would go back.  


What finally ended that was Dylan himself and my belief that he deserved to be protected from the very heartbreak of loving his father so much that I followed him and sacrificed so much in a short amount of time.  I couldn't do this for myself at all, but when I realized that Dylan's future and very soul could be at stake, being a mother,  I took him and my shattered life and once again started off with nothing.  


I slept on a friend's futon with my baby boy.....I walked to work every day.......I brought Dylan to a stranger who's only guarantee I had for his safety was that she was licensed.  My heart broke each day that I left him and went to work.  At first at temp jobs and then slowly a more permanent position.  I was still empty inside.  Terrified that I was now raising a child alone again.....what was I going to show him, what would I give him?  So I beat back my fears and put one foot in front of another, even when I broke my foot ( was in a walking cast for a year)  and made the best of everything.


The right man never appeared....nor the right place to live.  It's a wonder I ever had a good night's sleep.  In reality I told myself as long as you 're trying you're going to be ok.  I told myself that G-d wasn't going to drop me on my head.  I had more lessons to learn about what people say and what they do.  I had to learn still not to give up on myself, to not settle and to not believe the bullshit that other people might think about me cause let's face it....no one knows what you 're about unless they've lived it.  Everyone has an opinion but few ever do anything to really make it any better for you.


Twenty years later and I no longer drive that '68 Chevy Suburban, we all called The Beast.  I still don't have that place that I could fill with love and light..........roots.......love.......growth.  I am tired of fighting for something only I can see.  I am bone weary of all the self doubt I possess and carry around that I don't even think is mine.  I am confused and frightened at the future and what it may bring.  Youth gave me bravado and strength to not just live life but hit it hard when it hit me and tried to get me down.  Now at this point  I wonder what happened to all that magic that I once felt the world to hold.


I wonder and I think and I wait.  I feel so much pain now that I didn't even know existed when I was younger.  I was, I believe to busy to process any of the things that actually happened to me and now by proxy to my children.  To live this entire life and not be with my soul mate is somewhat bizarre to me.  


I remember twenty years ago thinking just a bit further up the road, it will materialize.  I will go through the right door, meet the right person, make the correct choice.....and then I will be united, tied, connected.  Instead I often feel on the outside of many things.......a bit like a puzzle piece that doesn't fit in the box it came with.  


So now don't worry.  There is no giving up for me really.  My pleasures just come in tiny portions........my perfect cup of coffee in the morning,  an amazing song to listen to,  my son's manifestation of his future, my daughter's compliments, the laughter of my grandson,  the kind words of my friends,  the scent of the lemon blossoms on the tree where I dump my coffee grounds in the morning.  


Only G-d can bring me to a place of abundance because only a house that is built with that higher energy can really house and nurture us.  I will be patient........I will continue to grow....I will share where I can.....I will shed my tears in private to unburden my heart of the burden of being alone for so long.
" Don't let it bring you down, it's only castles burning, just find someone who's turning and you will come around. " 

THE EVIL STEPMOTHER DELIVERS A POISONED E-MAIL

The following was sent to my daughter from my ex husband's wife:

Have you ever given any thought about what you want out of life for yoursel & Ethan?

Do you know there's a product called birth control? You'd better hope Matt sobers up

because I doubt he's been around a baby 24/7.

I'm reallyw ashamed of you Sam. You're acting like the bitches on Jerry Springer. So far you have 2 baby's Daddy's & no wedding in site. If you think Matt's all sober & responsible now just wait till the doodoo hit's the fan

 

I was always afraid you'd do this to Ethan who needs all the attention he can get & you fulfilled my expectations. Now you're just as skanky as Tara.

When you deliver your latest bundle of joy FOR GOD'S SAKE GET YOUR TUBES TIED!!!

 

You can't support the child you have -  WIC, food stamps, medicaid. I guess you just figure oh well I'm knocked up again but I won't worry cause I can get the Feds, the county & the state to cover my sorry ass since Wal mart sure as hell isn't going to. And neither are we this time around. Let's see what your Dad comes up with for you.

You have turned out just like your mother. That should make the 2 of you very proud.

I guaranteeMatt will go back to the bottle after if not before. That's just the way alcoholics deal with stress. I'm sure Melissa will be happy to be woken up at night by baby's screams, etc. But you will just keep on letting other people take care of the child who will need such care that Ethan gets little if any attention.   For once in your life do the right thing & call Dr.Damon Stutes at the West End Womens Medical Group at 5915Tyrone Rd.  827 0616. It doesn't hurt & at 3 weeks it's not even the size of a peanut. You can tell the people you know (who are no doubt in favor of you NOT having a child) that you have had a miscarriage. You don't hurt afterwords either at worst it's like period cramps.   Don't make this child come into a world where she can't be supported or given any kind of normal life & will cause  poor Ethan will be neglected.   Iguess you don't remember all your complaints & pains with Ethan . I think you know in your heat how this will come out. Matt & you have a snowball's chance in hell of making it. Then you will be a single mother with 2 kids by 2 fathers. You think it was hard on your own with 1 child wait until #2. You're even with you mother & you're on your to being a Tina. Do you remember your cool friend at Salem Place.   I know you think you can handle it but all the odds are against you.  You have created this bizarre situation & think that you and Matt will live happily ever after but you won't,no more than your mother did for Dylan whose father never married her. She left you at your cousins So she could follow Leon the drunk carnival worker. I know your Mom has filled you head with a bunch of crap but if you want the true side of story ask your Dad. He was there too. They say that history is always from the perspective of the victors.  After all if you don't survive you can't tell your side of the story.  Every person has a right to their opinion.  Including the succubus that married my daughter's father.  Every person also has the right to make mistakes, learn from them and love with all of their heart.   After processing the venom of this letter targeted at me and my daughter I have a few things to say.  I believe from the bottom of my soul that my children were conceived out of love and that no matter how hard it was.......I tried to put them first.  Some of us meet the partner of our soul and it frees us to do other work upon this earth.  Some of us have no idea what we're looking for so we recreate our parent's relationship.  Some of us had no idea what to do and made the best out of the absolute worse situations.   Being an adult means that one literally responds to things that happen to them and those around them. My daughter is 25 not 12.  Condoms break, pills fail, babies are conceived and with a loving heart some of us take that as a blessing.  My daughter did.  There is always a way to care for another life.  There is always a way to build love and heal.  There is always a way to find solace in something unexpected that happens to us.  This letter is filled with such poison and hate.  It is vulgar and filthy and vile.  I am guilty of having children with two different men.........and?   I am proud of those two people.  They are peaceful, soulful, and beautiful.  When I am dead and long gone I know I have infused them with light and love and music.  Our family is not rich with money but we are filled with love and passion and giving.  My legacy to my children isn't shame but one of power and survival.   Since when does a child suffer from a baby brother or sister coming into their life?  My daughter is anything other than a neglectful hateful mother.  She is practically Mother Nature herself........always growing things, caring for all of those around her.  My daughter Samantha is a force of nature, just like the storm that hit Sacramento the day she was born.  Her power and strength and beauty astound me. As a parent I sure hope my children don't turn out like me but that they surpass me.  I survived a traumatic childhood.  I know my children didn't have it easy either but neither one can ever say I didn't love them and try my best.  I can live with that.  I can look them in the eye and know it.   Laurel ( my ex's wife)  what is it that you hate so much?  That we exist?  That we survive?  That Samantha and I share a fierce ability to stick up for ourself in spite of what other's think of us?  In a perfect world we all grow up and meet the man or woman of our dreams that is equally suited for us and we never struggle.  Yeah right, and then you wake up.  At least Samantha has a respect for life.  She is willing to take on the huge responsibility of being a good parent.  Unlike you Laurel.  When you had the chance to be a step mom to her you kept insisting Samantha was clinically insane because she was wild and full of life.  That's called youth, btw.  You tried to minimize her, medicate her, extinguish her passion and when that didn't work, instead of accepting her for who she is you kicked her out of your home at 16.    Instead of learning who she is you put every possible obstacle in her way so that she, like me, had to grasp at straws and make the best out of relationships with some men that didn't deserve her.  She won't be the first or the last person to do that. ..... after all you married my ex husband.   Instead of learning some kind of compromise you hit Samantha with mistrust, suspicion, and unrealistic expectations.  I don't know of too many teens that could thrive under those expectations.  So like me, she went out on her own and learned that friends aren't always who you thought, boyfriends will disappoint and family isn't always there for you.   Like me Samantha never gave up, was never beaten down for long and yes, took the hardest road possible.  This is a crime?  This makes her less than valuable?  My daughter like me is not an indescriminant slut.  Having two relationships or five is no ones business but that persons. Just because you decided to sleep your way through a million men and do every drug under the sun does not mean that your step daughter was cut from the same cloth.  Instead of finding something about her to like, even if it was just that she is your husband's only daughter you didn't.  You fulfilled the stereotype of the evil step mother.  You couldn't even bother to put up pictures of her in your home. You Laurel are a dangerous person because your intelligence is not linked to a loving heart.  You have no depth nor an ability to understand that people make mistakes and sometimes need help.  You have made it obvious that you wish I and therefore Samantha never existed.  Well guess what?  We do.  I will continue to support my daughter in what SHE CHOOSES in her life.  I may not always agree with it. The timing may be horrible but babies are a blessing after all..........if we all waited until things were just perfect very few of us would be born. The worst part isn't just that you thought these things Laurel......but that you sent them to Samantha.  She read them.  And your hate hit my beautiful daughter so deeply that you got your wish.  A few hours later she began to cramp and bleed and in the morning called me terrified at the blood that she found between her legs.  I told her and Matt to go to the ER and she listened.   So you don't need to worry that someone like my amazing daughter will share another blessing with YOU because that child decided to pass on this time.  My daughter is left now with an empty womb. And for what?  Are you satisfied?  How does that wish feel to have been fulfilled at the expense perhaps of my daughter's life.  Be careful what you wish for Laurel because in the universe all things strive to be balanced.  When it is your time to reap what you sow upon this earth and upon my daughter, I don't want to be anywhere near you.  You are a pathetic excuse for a human being.  The full weight of this is on your soul, Laurel.  All of it. I can live with the things that happened to me and who I loved and who I created.  If you spent half as much time on your own life as you did dissecting mine you might be a happier person.  I pray you find it in your heart to leave Samantha and Matt to figure things out in their own way.  I think they will succeed in spite of you and after all...........that's the best reward of all.