Masterpiece in
Progress ©2021
By TLSmith
Chapter
Something’s Not Right
Dad’s Sick
Orange County Here We Come
The Aftermath
Mom’s Escape
Grandpa’s
Van Buren
Danny Ray
Back to Cali
Jerry – Early Days
I Didn’t Die
Mom’s Diagnosis
Trying to Survive
Selective Amnesia
The Same Only Different
There’s Always a Reason
Journal Excerpts
Kenny
Surgeries
Getting Along
Cancer Rears Its Ugly Head Again
Kenny’s Gone
E’s Crazy
Homeless Together
Drinking
Restoration
Full Circle
The Struggle is Real
Prologue
Sharing the Ugly Truth
Preface
I'm not going to lie; this is scary for me. I mean, who REALLY waits until they are 55 to write a book about their life? And what is so special about MY life that would make someone want to read it?
To be crystal clear, I don’t know that answer, but I DO know that God has laid it on my heart to do, so here I am, writing a book. Learning to be okay with being vulnerable. But this is MY journey, MY story to tell, the way I experienced it, even if I didn’t share it with anyone when it was happening.
For years I’ve felt like my words, my story, my journey, was supposed to be “about” something. Helping someone else? Healing me? Sharing what I’ve learned?
So, I will preface my story with this; my journey is about hurting, healing, and restoration. And that, is a long, painful, and often arduous process.
I’ve had to stop many times along the way and just allow myself time to fully comprehend and FEEL many of the things I share in this book. Sometimes the hurt so deep that it takes days to fully be ready to tackle any more. But more profound than anything to me is through this writing seeing God’s hand woven throughout the tapestry of my life. Even when I didn’t think He was there.
My hope is simple. After reading this, I hope you find yourself more accepting, more understanding, more tolerant of others. I hope it blesses you. I hope it shows you that you can not only survive the obstacles in life, you can triumph over them. Finally, I hope you find more love in your heart for others, even the ones that are hard to love. It may sound cliché, but we REALLY don’t know what others are going through, even if we think we do. As you will see through this book, appearances can be deceiving.
TS
Chapter 1
Something’s Not Right
I realized (later in life) that I’ve lived with anxiety ALL MY LIFE. To me, it feels like the waves of the ocean, building, building, reaching their majestic, beautiful, peak, then crashing on the shoreline, only to be sucked back into the ocean to start their process over again. Trying to stop the tide feels impossible, so along the way, I tread water, until the sea calms and I can reach the safety of the sand.
When I look back, I have no conscious memory of ever feeling "safe". The balls were always in the air. We lived in Los Angeles County, California, and there’s only one house there I REALLY remember. It was on Broadway street. It had a long driveway and a painted front porch. My sisters ask me about another house on Rita street, but I really only remember a staircase from that house.
I was really young, so my memories of the details of the interior of the house on Broadway are vague, but I remember being outside a lot with the neighbor kids. David lived next door and Diane visited her grandmother who lived down the street often.
David’s mom (I think her name was Martha) played solitaire all the time (with a cigarette hanging from her mouth), and she taught me how to play. She also had a handheld slot machine (think of old school video poker, WITHOUT the video part) that she let me play with.
We rode bikes, played in kiddie pools and the back of my dad’s truck. One time, I fell off the back of David’s bike and busted my chin open requiring stitches. I don’t remember getting the stitches, but I sure remember going to get them out. I screamed bloody murder the whole time.
We had to be about 5 or 6? David and I would walk to the liquor store (in California the liquor store was like a convenience store in the 60’s) to buy candy or gum, or those HUGE pickles in the jar that I loved. (I still love them).
On one of our trips, a man in a car pulled over toward us and he was exposed. Playing with his genitals and grinning at us as if it were funny. We ran all the way home and told our parents. And we never went to the liquor store alone again.
But David was weird after that (I thought). He would try to expose himself to me and it made me feel uncomfortable. When I told my mom about it, she told me I could only play with David under supervision.
I was always happy when Diane would come to visit her grandma, having another little girl to play with was more fun than David. And Diane had the cutest ever pixie haircut that I envied. I was always a chunky kid and Diane was teeny tiny, and in my eyes, perfect. I wanted to be like her. So, I finally convinced my mom to let me get my haircut like hers.
But here’s where things get “muddy” for me. SOMETHING happened at Diane’s grandma’s house. And all I can REALLY remember is her teaching me something (someone else was there too, but I don’t remember who) she called, “doctoring your twat.” It wasn’t unpleasant, but I didn’t understand why you’d do this either. But unlike the man who was exposed, or David, who
