Gracies Love Story

 This is the story of a little girl whose own Love Story would never be found so she adopted the Love Story of her mommy and daddy.  I remember this conversation with Gracie as if it happened an hour ago.  I miss this this little girl so much and I am happy to have her as an angel above me.

Gracie:  My daddy saw my mommy and in his heart he knew he had to find a way to marry her.  The first time he saw her his heart told him so.  The first time he kissed her, her eyes told him so.  The day he married her he told her if she ever stopped loving him his heart would stop beating all together.  Everyday before they were married they never went to sleep before they told each other they loved each other.  When my daddy asked her to marry him he said to her 'You are such a beautiful princess.  Would you like to marry this toad and turn him into a prince?"  My mommy said 'ribbit' which is toad for yes.  They are living happily ever after and their love will never die.

We grow up. We fall in love.  We build a life together and slowly we build upon that love and nurture it and enjoy the things that make it grow.  Then things happen that make our hearts ache and we search and search for an answer in how we can get that love back.  That love, in fact, has never lessened.  We let things clog up our hearts and cloud up our sight into the love we have inside of us.  It makes us feel like what we felt back then was not what we thought it was.  Whether as a couple you are struggling to find that lost love, or someone who due to the death of a love one may be afraid to love again, there is somewhere you can go to figure out how to repair the ache you feel inside your heart.

The memories made and planted deep inside us will bring to light the past we miss.  It's usually the last place we visit in our struggles in life but the first place we should.  Memories, good and bad, are what helps us make our future decisions.  They also shed light on how we got to where we are today.  They help us remember why we chose the paths we did.  Often times they can help us get back on that path by reminding us what we have to lose that we swore we could not live without.

One of the early conversations I had with my little angel Gracie was how her parents met.  Her story was cute and charming and in an eight year old girls eyes was what fairy tales are made of.  I also visited with her parents, Bill and Annie, to get a better picture of how Gracie's life came to be.  I came to the conclusion that although Gracie's story was close to how her parents became a couple, it really was a love story that represented closely the story told by Gracie.

Bill:  I first met Annie on her seventeenth birthday.  My family happened to be at the same restaurant her family was at celebrating her birthday.  The moment I saw her my heart not only skipped a beat, it picked up a rhythm of its own that told me there was something special about this girl.  I turned to my brother Bobby and made the statement, "I am going to marry that girl someday."   Bobby laughed it off as he said,  "You're only seventeen, you've never went out with a girl more then once."   I asked the hostess to seat our party of four near where her family was sitting which contained a party of eight.

Annie:  I was with my parents, my sister, and both sets of my grandparents, celebrating my seventeenth birthday.  To be honest with you, I never noticed who was sitting at the tables around us, I was just enjoying the time with my family.  I first noticed Billy when the staff appeared at our table with a birthday cake with a single candle on it and begun to sing happy birthday to me.  There were probably six waiters standing around all in uniform, then there was this guy standing with them in a Red Sox Tee-Shirt and a faded pair of blue jeans.  It was like a photo captioned 'one of these items is out of place'.

Bill:  I saw the staff moving towards Annie's table and decided I would stand up with them and sing happy birthday to her.  I did not think she had noticed me before and I was sure this would capture her attention.  When the song was over and the staff walked away I was left standing at their table.  I wished the birthday girl happy birthday and introduced myself.  Before I went back to my table and took my seat I looked at Annie and all her beauty and said, "I just wanted to express to you how happy I hope your life is when you marry the man who will love you for the rest of your life".

Annie:  I remember my sister poking fun at Billy when he walked away from our table after wishing me a happy birthday and telling me he hoped my life was happy when I met the love of my life.  I felt my face turn red when he spoke to me and I remember my father asking me "do you know that boy?"  I also remember thinking 'no, I do not know that boy but I sure would like to see what he is all about'.  It was difficult to engage myself into more family conversation after Billy introduced himself to me.  I was so disappointed that I had already made my wish when I blew out my candle.  My wish was that my gift from my grandparents would be a shiny new car, like the one the four of them bought my sister on her seventeenth birthday two years ago.  I wanted that wish back, because more than a car, I wanted that boy to find a way to find me once I left that restaurant.

Bill:  I was anxious as I sat there waiting for her party to leave, unsure of how I could make sure this was not over before it had a chance to start.  As they walked by our table I noticed Annie and her sister dragging slowly behind the six adults they had arrived with.  As she passed she stopped briefly to thank me for the birthday wishes.  I grabbed a pen and took her hand.  Palm side up I wrote my cell number in the middle of her palm.  I told her, "call me when you can't stop me from lingering in your mind". 

Annie: I about fated when he grabbed my hand and wrote his number in my palm.  I closed that palm tight as I walked away from him smiling as if it might slip out of my grip, even though it was written on the skin itself. My sister, Jennifer, teased me the entire way home about the boy who flirted with me that night.  My father was a bit disturbed about the boldness of that young man who dared to interrupt our family dinner.  My mom saw the spark in my eyes and told my father she thought he was a very nice polite young man.  I just thought he was cute and he was paying attention to me and he was lingering on my mind.

Bill:  I never expected for Annie to actually call me, although she was on my mind the rest of the entire evening.  Why I did not think to ask her for her number was something I felt I would regret the rest of my life.  The girl that made my heart skip a beat when I first laid eyes on her, made it miss a beat when she walked out that door.

Annie:  I did text Billy that night, telling him, "You are still lingering on my mind.  Annie." 

Bill:  We met on Annie's seventeenth birthday and on her eighteenth birthday we were married.  June 1, 2002.  I married the girl that first made my heart skip a beat and she's been making it skip since that first time I laid my eyes on her.

Annie:  Billy has always told me that the day he first saw me his heart started a rhythm that beat to the tune of every love song ever written.  I can truthfully say that my heart beats stronger everyday we have each other.  I cannot imagine a life without the man who will love me for the rest of my life.

Bill and Annie:  I am just a kid who believes in one love, one marriage.  I haven't been through what you have been through in the tragedy of losing your beautiful eight year old daughter on May 27th of this year.  I can only imagine the difficulty in being such a young couple with a lot of life ahead of them, trying to figure out how to move forward in your grief.   I can attest to the pain of losing a loved one that you never expected would never be with you until the end of your time on earth.  I know that pain never leaves and the search continues on for ways to find relief from that pain, if even for a moment.  I would encourage you to hold onto your faith and trust that God has a plan that will be much greater then the pain.  Never let go of the memories that are the foundation of what you mean to each other.  You will get through this and you will come out stronger in your love for one another.  We cannot turn back the hands of time and we cannot push those hands of time any faster than the beat of our hearts.  We can, however, utilize the time we are in to rebuild our trust in God, our trust in each other, and our trust in ourselves.  

Gracie: Don't worry my little angel in heaven, we got this.  Spread those tiny wings and blow your angel dust upon us.  Love and miss you Gracie!

Family: It's Never Been More Than I Can Handle, But What If It Ever Is?

There is no fear greater in my life then the fear of becoming someone I do not want to become.  My 'dad' was an evil man in my eyes, and while I know there is no one close to the perfection of being a human being as we all should be, I cannot even begin to accept the faults of evilness planted deep inside his soul.  My fear is that the genes we share will be the ones that turn me into the monster he was.  I fight those feelings every night when I lay down and recap who I was today, was I the best possible human being to everyone that I could be.

One of the hardest things for me to understand is how so many dark secrets existed in the Bushnell home I grew up in in Sioux City, IA.  Secrets that are still being discovered six years after I made my exit from that house and moved 1500 miles away to Boston, MA.  A 24 hour distance when driven by car if you were driving straight through.  Perhaps that is why in my mind I am always only a day away from forgetting and forgiving a past I cannot seem to leave behind me.

I am not referring to the secrets kept from others by my family, or the secrets kept between us as family members.  I am referring to the secrets we kept from each other.  Those were probably the most damaging secrets of all.  Had that first secret been revealed years ago, the thousands that followed would not exist today.  Secrets that COULD tear a family apart.  Secrets that SHOULD tear a family apart.  Secrets that WOULD tear a family apart.  Turns out keeping secrets that did not tear our family apart, ended up tearing us apart anyway.

Little secrets are like white lies.  No such thing.  A secret is a secret and a lie is a lie, there is no getting around that.  It's like when you are told something and promise not to tell anyone, but you know you are going to tell your best friend.  It seems as though secrets and lies make the world turn and many times I wonder if secrets and lies are better left alone.  You know that old saying "leave well enough alone"?  Why is that so hard to do?  What is that itch we cannot reach when we do not understand the why of what happened and set out on a search for the answer?  Then there's the old saying "be careful what you ask for", clearly meant because what you go searching for you more then likely will wish you left well enough alone.

In order for me to better understand who I do not want to become I need to learn more about the person who resembles to me that person I am so in fear of being. That would be my 'dad', and I use that term under protest and despise.  There are lots of words I could use to describe him that would be more accurate then dad, or father, but if I did I would disappoint many of my older friends and BFF (Blog Following Friends).  I feel calling him dad is an insult to all the fathers out there who are hero's to their sons and prince's to their daughters.  And an even bigger insult to those like Jake, who I refer to as my dad, because even though he has never fathered a son,  he has taken me on in the absence of any other male figure in my life who could embrace me and raise me the way Jake has.

It's ironic in a way, that when my 'dad' was convicted of crimes against innocent people and sent to prison for the rest of his life I felt I had also been locked away, in a world too big for the scared little kid that never left from inside of me .  I also find it ironic that when my mom (R.I.P. Mom I love and miss you more than ever) died some of my dreams died with her.  It's like when my mom died a part of me died as well, and when my dad was incarcerated for life, I was somewhat imprisoned too. I no longer dream of the day I marry and have children for my mom to spoil under her new title in life as grandma.  I never knew either set of my grandparents and I dreamed of the day I could watch my mom become a grandmother to my own children. 

With the help of my brother Jordy I am looking back at our family tree and the history upon which its roots were planted.  The unfortunate part about doing research on your family history is you start with the most recent family members that have come along and work your way back.  Easier said then done when three of your four siblings  and your mom are deceased.  I have my mom's two sisters to rely on for the maternal side and I have my 'dads' sister and two brothers to rely on for the paternal side.  Many letters have been sent and many phone calls have been made in an effort to find out more about the secrets that existed even before the Bushnell secrets started to surface.

I recently received a letter from my great uncle in eastern Iowa, who was an uncle to my 'dad' and his siblings.  He was a brother to my 'dads' dad and I cannot thank him enough for responding to my letter to him regarding our family history.  I was just as surprised to find out from him that he did not know I existed as he was to find out that I did.  His letter was brief but it did include something that gets me closer to explaining who my 'dad' was.  My 'dad' was distanced from his family when he was 16 which was by his own choice.  What little contact he had with his siblings once he left home was very meager until they all established family units of their own.  That distance would once again separate them when my baby sister died at the age of 3 when I was almost 7.  What my great Uncle had to offer me was how my 'dads' dad (my paternal grandfather) was also distanced from his family when he was in his early teens.  That was his choice also.  The interesting part about this new found information is that my brother Jordy distanced himself from our family when he was just 14.  That is also the age that I was forced to be distanced from my mom and 'dad' when I was beat out of their life.

Could this be an avenue for me that might possibly help me let go of a past that haunts me?  Is there hope in his letter that I may find comfort in knowing I am my own man and I do not need to worry about who I will become based on who I came from?  Could this be the start of a healing process, not to forgive my 'dad' for seven evil years of my life, but to let go of the thought of a life long fight to ensure I never become who he is?

It does not disturb me in the least that I continue to work on who I am and what I have to offer while on earth's journey.  I understand that is something we all do, or should be doing.  Evaluate ourselves and take a good look at who we are inside and out, process that into how we can be better, to ourselves as well as to everyone else.  What I do struggle with is how much time I put into who I am not, which is my 'dad'.  It disturbs me to look into a mirror and see that reflection looking back at me, knowing as the years roll by I resemble him more and more.  In my heart I know I am nothing like him outside of the way we look.  It is my mind that I cannot convince I am not the monster he is and I am not even capable of doing the things to others that he had done to us.  It is not my heart I cannot convince I am better than that, it is my mind that tells me it is possible because the genes we share are so close to each other.

I fear this is a fight I will be fighting the rest of my life.  What the heart can let go of the mind never does.  The endless countless nightmares never leave for more then a few days before they whip back into my life.  It would be a lot easier if there were no mirrors and no night falls in my journey to heaven.   I will keep researching my family tree, in hopes to find not just answers to questions better left unasked, but family I have yet to meet.  I have built myself a pretty good misfit family that I would not trade in for the world.  I will always believe that even thought blood may be thicker than water, water is what quenches your thirst.  I will continue this journey, searching for family I never knew existed, and family that never knew I existed with dreams of one day finding a break in the cycle that seems to be established in the gene line of the Paulings from Eastern Iowa. I do not want to forget my past, there were many great things that came out of it.  Forgetting the past would be like never having one, and never learning the true definition of family and feeling what it is like to be loved unconditionally.  With out the past I had, I would not be facing the future I face and be living the life I presently am living.  I am unwilling to give up on my current dreams and future goals just to put the past behind me.  Instead, I choose to discover more about how that past came about and try to find a reasonable explanation that allows me to let myself off the hook on what I could have done differently, if anything.  Something that tells me I was not at fault, that I did nothing wrong, that I was a victim. WAS a victim, because someday I hope to be able to let it go, and never play the victim card again. 

When I look in the mirror and that haunted gene pool stares back at me I will look beyond that reflection and see those that have always been there for me.  Those that never left, those that never will.  Those that believe in the goodness inside of me and bring out the best of who I am.

If only I had as much faith in myself as I have in God, or as much faith in myself as God has in me, or as much faith in myself as others have in me, perhaps then I could forget the past, forgive the sins, and realize they belong to him, not to me.  The Bible helps me build my faith in God and eternal life but there is no book I could read, or write, that can help me build my faith in myself.  That has to come from inside of me, and I would venture to say that a few of you know that after years of burying life's 'ickies" deep, bringing them to the surface is the only way to heal.  But that does not come without more heartaches, finding out more lies, and reliving what you didn't enjoy living the first time around. 

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.

 Dale Carnegie quotes 

Friends: The Goodness in the Hearts of Strangers

You know you're on the right path when you're not afraid to ask others to pray for your strength to get you through the current test of your faith as you journey through life on earth.  It certainly is not a sign of weakness to ask for extra prayers for yourself, in fact, I would consider it a great strength with-in you to ask others to reach further inside of themselves to work the power of prayer.

In a world that seems full of anger and hate and violence against our fellow brothers and sisters of the Lord, it is these times when our own faith is tested that will help us see the goodwill on earth.  In my heart I believe there are many more great things happening then bad things in this world when it comes to one on one human contact.  As an inspiring journalist half way through my college trek in a degree in journalism I have many assignments regarding human interest stories.  I am required to dig into all aspects of the media and the stories that are covered.  I learned very quickly that what attracts attention are the not so pleasant stories of violence.  So many people spend time writing and reading these stories, trying to figure out how our human brain functions. Those are the stories I try to stay away from. 

I am more interested in how the human heart works.  I tend to embrace stories that come from our hearts and get passed onto the hearts of others.  I believe there is a lot of kindness in this world and I believe that most prayers are said for others than for ourselves.  I believe there is more genuine kindness than kindness some people extend for personal gain.  I believe in the goodness of others.  I believe in random acts of kindness that truly expresses our love for each other as well as our love in God.  I believe that there are gazillions of people that offer hope and faith and prayer to others for no other reason then they see it as their chance to help others through times of personal struggles.  To wish peace and happiness to fall on others is one of the most unselfish human deeds that can be done, and to expect nothing but kindness back is an even greater display of human kindness.

As sad as the story of Grace's final days on earth were, and as hard as it was to walk those days next to her, we did it.  We all did it.  I merely brought her story of courage and faith to you, which was my way of asking a lot of friends I've yet to meet to reach into their hearts and offer up kindness and prayers of peace for a child of God who was headed home to HIM.

As difficult as it is to continue to blog my life's journey of the seven years of abuse I endured at the hands of a man with very little kindness and happiness in his heart, I do it to ask for strength to keep breathing as a new day rises.

As hard as it was to lose my best friend and brother Joey, I keep his memory alive by talking about his death to remind others that living life with a kind heart will ensure your faith is strong so that one day when our hearts stop beating and our last breath of life on earth is taken, we will meet our loved ones once again in heaven where eternity will never part us again.

Pam, in your heart you have to believe in the power of prayer or you would not continue to ask for prayers to help you get through this most difficult time .  There are hundreds of people from several countries praying for your son Jacob to recover fully from his health scare.  Those same fellow brothers and sisters are praying for the strength you need to get him through the next phase of his recovery.  There will be days where you will feel you have used all the strength you have and days when you feel you have given everything you have to give.  It will be challenging for you to keep Jacob motivated to fight back.  Tears will be shed, with others and when you are alone.  Anger will surface with questions of  'why me?' and sadness will try to creep into your heart when you feel you have nothing left to offer.  It is during these times that you need to remember you and Jacob are not in this fight alone.  Every tear you shed will represent one more person added to the prayer chain in restoring your strength, let them flow freely.  Every moment you spend in anger is a moment you lose in time where you could be resting, restoring your strength.  Letting sadness creep into your heart will take up valuable space that someone else may be trying to fill.  You are not alone.  Believe in the fellowship others have to offer, embrace the spirits around you that will guide you and Jacob back to a healthy life, a happy heart, and enjoying the blessings God has given you.

Many thoughts and prayers of strength to you and Jacob.  Hugs.  Jett

PS: Jacob,  Mom's the boss.  Always has been, always will be.  What she says goes.  Fight little brother, show the world how tough you are.  Your left side needs to be as strong as your right side so someday when we arm wrestle, you have a fighting chance.  Weakness is NOT an option.