We seldom take time in our hurried days to reflect on the connections of people in our lives and how they take us to places in our life that we are blessed with. Last night we were at a wedding of a beloved daughter that nudged me to think and reflect how I got to be a part of the lives of so many amazing young women who have called me their "college mom" and been my family of the heart. As we said goodbye for the evening, one of my daughters hugged me...one of those hugs that fill your soul. And she would not let go as she whispered in my ear "thank you for always being here for me." How could I not be :) I love you so much!
How did I get to this state of having so many beautiful young women bless my life? I thought about that this morning...
As a freshman in college, I struggled profoundly, silently on so many levels for so many reasons. I was blessed enough to meet some young women in my dorm that I immediately felt at ease with, loved by, and a part of. Nancy and Barb, Pamela and Marcia. I am still in touch with Nancy and Pamela, have been with Barb (I think I still have her address...) but lost track of Marcia after college. They were members of an organization of other young women they brought me into and I became a member of at the beginning of my sophomore year. Nancy and Barb became my "pledge moms" and Pamela and Marcia "adopted moms."
Little did I know the path it would take me down in the years to come...
Being a part of this group, like any large group of people, had its blessings and challenges. I had moments of such joy and at the same time struggled to find my lane, my place. It didn't help that I had to deal with daily emotional terrorism distributed by my mother via telephone. This was long before caller ID and answering machines so to avoid it was hard. I told no one, discussed with no one, the emotional and verbal abuse and pain that was the fabric of my life and shaped so many of my days. I struggled as a young woman as the subject of this and at the same time being a member of a large group of other young women... I wish now that they could know the grown woman writing this instead of the young woman that was in pieces then.
As college progressed, I felt less interested in the group and less a part of it, especially after my 4 "moms" graduated and left campus. It was a wonderful group, I just didn't feel connected. When I graduated a semester earlier than the rest of my class and left campus, the group, the connections, were, for the most part, left behind with the other memories.
I got a job, life moved on and I didn't look back. From time to time I would run across pictures, t-shirts, memorabilia from the group and those days. I did stay in touch with a few here and there. I still struggled, abuse from home only got worse and more brutal as I got older. Being a young woman in pieces sometimes went to being a woman shattered. To struggle with that kind of abusive treatment is hard to explain to someone who has never dealt with it. Bruises are easy to see, shattered souls are not. And life kept rolling along...
I got married late in my 30s to a guy worth the wait and worth dating all of the assholes. The marriage moved me even further from the area I grew up in and went to college. Though it was tough at first, it has been a blessing...bringing the daughters <3
The first few months of newlywed life, I found myself writing wedding thank you notes and doing the paperwork to change my address (I kept my name so some of the paperwork was spared.) On the list to change my address was the college organization I had been a member of so I called the national office and talked to the office manager and explained where I now lived. She paused for a moment and asked me how far away I was from a particular campus. I told her I thought about 9 miles. She said that the chapter at that campus was looking for an advisor and asked if I'd be interested in volunteering. I told her I'd think about it and fill out the application and send it in. Thus began the journey of the daughters of the heart...
The hubs and I didn't have children for medical reasons. I've never felt like one of those women who MUST have birth children or have a baby. God would give us what He gave us. We give back a great deal to those who have no voice and support those who need it since we don't have kids. As I began my journey with the chapter, little did I know how many times I would be a mother in a way I never imagined could happen.
Over the 15 years that I was chapter advisor, literally a few hundred young women passed through our lives. Many had wonderful mothers of their own, their birth mothers. The kind I wish I had had. Leigh who is a gifted writer and teacher, Jane who teaches kindergarten, Theresa, Pam, Marcia, I have met so many of them and am in awe of how amazing they are and the job they have done with such beautiful daughters and how blessed I feel that they share them with me. They are the maternal examples we all wish we had. I wish I had room to name them all and recall them all.
I have had serious issues to counsel the daughters through. Abuse, substance abuse, mental health issues...anorexia, cutting. I sometimes wonder how I have summoned the substance to help them get back on a path that is more stable, sometimes have had to let them fall and skin their knees because that is what life is about... lessons. That part is so hard and hurts. But most of the time they come out stronger and better on the other side. There are more times than I can count that boys broke their hearts and I have done my best to remind them how amazing they are and that they will remain just as amazing after Mr. What's-his-name.
How did I get so blessed...
We have been participants in their weddings, had them bring their babies for us to hold. I am incredibly humbled each and every time they open their lives up to include us.
How did we get so blessed...
I had a daughter wear my wedding veil last summer when she walked down the aisle. I simply had no words when I tucked it into her hair as she got ready. I had the tears of love though. My heart overflowed.
How...how... am I so very blessed...
So as I had a daughter hold me tight last night I absorbed her wonderful love and was reminded that this all started on a path with 4 young women encouraging me to join a college organization. As an alum, rejoining the group on a different course. That broken and sometimes shattered woman of years ago moved forward to hopefully help other young women mend, grow and maybe bypass what can be such a painful struggle. To know that the person they are in college that suffered like I did does not have to be that woman down the line. I am not that person from college and as I said, I wish those members of the college group knew me now as I am, not then. I am an advocate and force for the broken and those who feel they have no voice...because I did not. No one was there to hold my shattered heart in their hands and tell me everything would be better, I would be better. I have been committed to doing that for them.
I love them all more than I can possibly express in a composition, more than I can speak.
So all of my Sigma daughters, and to my original 4, I love you so very much. I am so very grateful to be blessed with your love. I hope I am until I draw my last breath. I could not ask for more, I am...
...so very blessed.
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