The price we pay...

For many years I was never a part of any groups.  Through high school and college I wasn’t much of a joiner.  I preferred to interact with people in my own way and never felt as if I belonged to any specific group of people.  After college I got married and very shortly after I had a beautiful daughter, quickly followed by two handsome boys.  My life was consumed with a house full of babies.  There is less than two and half years between my oldest and my youngest.   I didn’t have time for friends and stuck to interacting my family.  We went to church, but didn’t participate in any small groups.  Needless to say my social life was limited. 

Shortly after my third child was born, my husband I separated.  We had many insurmountable issues and there had been infidelity that I knew I wouldn’t be able to “get over.”  I entered into a period of my life where I felt very isolated.  Not yet 25, I was going through a divorce, became a single mom of three very small children, and was still friendless. 

I learned to cope with the grief that I felt and very quickly learned to stand on my own two feet and rebuild my life apart from my failed marriage.  I was finally happy.  I was headed in the right direction.  Looking back now I think, “Wow, that was easy!” 

Not long after ,I met Ryan. We dated for awhile and got married.  Aside from family I still had very few friends and none that I was very close to, but I was happy.  We belonged to a church, but our interactions at church were limited to the greeting time at the beginning of each service.  My daughter was a dancer, so I had some acquatiances that I spoke friendly to on dance nights.  Ryan is a truck driver and was gone a lot so as before life revolved around my children and work.

In the spring of 2012 we became a member of a club.  This club though is one that NO ONE wants a membership to.  Not a single person in this club doesn’t wish with every fiber of their being that they didn’t have to be a part of it.  The price of membership was excurtiating.  We became members of the club of parents who have lost a child.  We paid the ultimate price to find out who our friends were and to connect with people we never would have found. 

More tomorrow...