Today marks a very special day in the life of one of my most special, most influential and favorite people. Today is my Mama’s birthday.  I would say I always have the hardest time putting my feelings for her into words but let’s be honest, she’s always told me I’m wordy.

There is something special about the mother-daughter bond. It’s why so many girls would describe their own mother as the best ever. And that is certainly how I feel about my mother, she is truly the best mother.

When I think about her, I think about goodness.  With a dash of sass of course.  The perfect mixture of all things a Mother needs to be.

She lead by example teaching me how very important it is to love Jesus, to be kind, to be thoughtful, to be gracious, to be loving, to be caring, to be selfless, to be thankful, to be honest and to be hard working. She taught me what it means to truly love someone unconditionally.

She taught me how to smile no matter what life throws at you, and know that tomorrow will bring new promises and hope when you feel down. She taught me to value myself, to surround myself with like minded people and to know when it’s time to cut ties when someone isn’t good for you.

She taught me to honor my commitments and to keep my promises. She made me value education, perseverance and personal values. She raised me to be a strong woman.

She taught me when to keep my big mouth shut. She knew this wildly loud, strongly opinionated girl needed to quickly learn that.

If you’re new to my blog, you may not know this about me, about us. This is why I feel our bond is so strong. I was adopted at 5 days old. God basically hand-picked these amazing people to be my parents. And y’all, I won the parent lottery!

She has been my loudest cheerleader and she always believes in me, even when I don’t believe in myself. I know she has many more lessons to teach me as the years continue to roll on, and each day I value our relationship more than the day that has passed.

Then on top of being an amazing mom, she’s the best grandmother ever. She goes by Nanny, and she sure loves these three. These littles of mine have no clue how blessed they are to have a Nanny as wonderful as she is. I’m so glad that our babies have always had her right next door to love and care for them. And teach them and help them. And let’s be completely honest…she spoils them too.  Y’all, we have lived out the “it takes a village” mantra.

If it wasn’t for this woman, I would not be who I am today. It is certainly a blessing to be able to say your mother is your best friend. And she is clearly that, my best friend. I live beside her, normally see her every day and talk to her a million times a day.  She never once complains of the hundreds of times I call her to ask silly questions like what does bad hamburg smell like, I have a skunk in my chicken coop and need your help, can you come kill this spider, did you know Dad is on the road again or can you look and see if this injury is emergency room worthy? I am truly blessed!

As we look towards the future, I just want you to know Mom, I love you. It feels like such an inadequately simple phrase to express how very much I care for you. My life is blessed because you are in it. Everything I am and will be, I owe to you. You’re the best. I hope the year to come is one of your very best yet!

Every year, thousands of people experience some form of stalking, whether online or in-person. According to statistics from Victims of Crimes, 15 percent of women and 6 percent of men have experienced stalking at some point in their lifetime. And 7.5 million people were stalked in one year in the United States. Without even knowing it, someone in your life – a co-worker, family member, or friend—could be being stalked right now.

Let me share with you my story.

When I was in college, my friends introduced me to a boy.  He wasn’t really my type, but I thought I would give him a chance.  Not long into the relationship, I started noticing what I know now were “red flags”.  The internet wasn’t really a thing back then and neither was Google.  I had no idea back then what “red flag” meant.

Not long after we began dating came the story of his ex-girlfriend.  He told me of how she broke up with him and it infuriated him.  So he waited until she left her house, went in and put a pan of grease on her stove and turned the burner on high.  Essentially, he burnt her house down.  Was this story true?  I have no idea.  Was it meant to scare me?  Absolutely.  And it worked.

As the relationship went on, it turned abusive mentally and physically.  At one point, he even told me he wanted to shoot my Mom because she didn’t agree with our relationship.  Just one more way for him to add fear and control.

After months of mental abuse, physical abuse and being roofied by him I couldn’t take any more.  While sitting in class chatting with my friends, I finally got up the courage to end the relationship.  With help from my friends, we devised a plan.  He lived a half-hour from me so I knew if I did it over the phone it would take him at least a half hour to get there.  If I packed my bag ahead of time and had it in my car, I could leave as soon as we hung up.  That would give me time to get in my car, get a head start and drive to a friends house.

I was scared to death, my heart felt like it was beating out of my chest, but I picked up the phone to make that call. 

With my voice shaking, I said the words.  I want to break up.  He was instantly furious; screaming, swearing, throwing and breaking things.  He dropped the phone and in the background his Mom started yelling to me to run, he was on his way to my house.  With that, I hung up the phone and ran out the door.  I drove to a friends house an hour away.

I will never forget that drive and the fear I felt the entire time.  Every car that got behind me made me anxious and terrified.  At one point the anxiety took over so much I started feeling light headed, but I knew I couldn’t pull over or he’d catch up to me.

The next morning, as I pulled into college I couldn’t wait to tell my friends how brave I had been!  As I rounded the corner and pulled into the parking lot my heart dropped.  There he was, standing in the parking lot waiting for me.  On the way there his car ran out of gas and he had spent the entire night walking the remaining 40 miles to my school.  Thank God for my friends.  They surrounded me and walked me in to my class.  As class started, I looked out the door and there he stood just outside the classroom, glaring at me.  When class was over my friends again surrounded me and walked me to my next class.  He stood there through that class, and the next two.

I remember how terrified I was that day.  I was in a classroom surrounded by people but it felt as if it was just him and I.  I went to the office and asked them to call the police and was shocked when they refused.  They didn’t want their name associated in any police report.

My only option was to call my Mom at work and see if she would come over.  Thankfully she did, and he left.

I wish I could say it ended there.

Three days later he was admitted to a local mental facility by his parents.  And for some reason I will never understand, the facility allowed him to call me collect twice.  Of course I didn’t accept the phone calls.

When he got out, the stalking began.  I was followed, I had rocks spun all over my car, I was chased, I was run off the road and I cannot count the phone calls I received.  The college I attended was nearly an hour away from his house but many times I would walk out of college to find him just sitting in the parking lot in his car.  Or if my friends and I would hang out at the local mall during a free period, I’d walk out of the mall to find him again sitting in his car.

I felt like I constantly had to look over my shoulder.

One night I was walking next door to my neighbors.  When I walked out of my door, he was standing on my porch.  And he recounted my entire previous weekend.

I will never forget the day I was home alone and he pulled in the driveway.  He pulled in so quickly and slammed on his brakes, rocks flying up onto the yard.  Thankfully, I already had all the doors locked.  I hid under my bed and called my friend as he pounded on the door, screaming for me to open it.  I told my friend what he was doing, saying and driving so if anything happened to me, someone would know.  The fear was so real, just thinking of it can take me back to that day and makes it hard to breathe.

A few months later I started dating my husband.  He told me about a night, before we met, where he had actually spoken to my stalker.  He noticed that in the stalkers car, he had lots of pictures of me taped to his dash.  When he asked him about it, my stalker told him it was his girlfriend.  He then pulled a gun out from under his seat and showed him.  He said that if he ever found her with another guy he was going to shoot the guy, shoot her and then shoot himself.

Only by the grace of God that never happened.

I eventually went to the courthouse to file a restraining order.  But quickly left in tears once the judge questioned me then scolded me, asking me why I continued to date someone if he was so horrible to me.  And that interaction even further made me feel like what happened to me was my fault.

Sharing my story isn’t a way to gain attention or pity, it’s a way of making my voice heard and taking my power back.

If you have taken the time to read my story, you can see stalking is very real, very scary and very dangerous.  Hollywood has produced romantic comedy after romantic drama telling men if they make some grand gesture, even if it’s inappropriate, they will get the girl.  These movies teach girls that crazy, unstoppable pursuit equals true love.  Not to mention the glamorization of stalking and abuse in 50 Shades of Grey.  But as Gavin de Becker, the nation’s leading expert on violent behavior says:

Persistence only proves persistence – it does not prove love. The fact that a pursuer is relentless doesn’t always mean you are special – sometimes it means they are troubled.

Stalking can affect anyone, at any point in their lives—and it can be a frightening and a life-altering horrible experience.

Over the years there have been times I’ve saw him in public.  Seeing him can send me reeling into panic mode.  Hearing someone talk about him makes anxiety take over my body.  Now, looking back almost twenty-five years later, the fear I felt still seems fresh.  Even typing this post makes me feel faintly sick as I relive the horror I felt at the time.  I still struggle at times with feeling like I constantly need to look over my shoulder.

Oh friend, if you’re in an abusive relationship I beg you to not walk but run away.  If you’re being stalked, don’t make excuses for the stalker or tell yourself you are overreacting.  And don’t allow others to downplay what you’re feeling.  Tell a friend or family member what’s happening so you have a support person and a witness.  If you are in immediate danger or are being followed, dial 911.  There’s no price for overreacting, but under-reacting to stalking can, in extreme cases, be fatal.  Visit Stalking Awareness for further resources.

 

 

This is a day that I dread, one that makes me cringe.  A day where I try my very best to stay away from all social media.  As many of you know, October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  And October 13 has been deemed national No Bra Day or Free the TaTas.

I am the daughter of a woman who not only fought breast cancer but won that fight. Not only one fight, but multiple times. Her fight spanned across many years, each one being tough in it’s own way.  From 1981 through 1989 she battled and fought.  And throughout it all, she only asked God for one thing…to allow her to live long enough to raise her daughter.

From her perspective, those years had to be frightening.  The first surgery she had in 1981, she nearly lost her life.  The cancer was more advanced than they first anticipated, and a partial mastectomy had to be performed.  The next battle resulted in a complete mastectomy.  And the last battle included chemo and radiation.

When she first found out she had cancer, I was only six years old.  I can remember playing with the neighbor kids and waving to her as my Grandpa took her to the hospital for her first surgery.  I can remember hearing whispers of her condition when I was around.  I can remember crying, because I just wanted my Mama home.  I can remember the look on her face the first time she showed me her changed body riddled with staples.  I can remember the nights she spent sick from chemo and radiation.  The days her stomach would only allow her to eat rice.  And the morning I found her passed out on the floor because her white blood cell count had dropped.

The intent of this post isn’t to gain sympathy, but rather to give you a glimpse of what the reality of breast cancer is.

Her and I have had many, many discussions about ‪No ‬Bra Day and Free the Tatas. And to a breast cancer survivor, to a woman who fought to live so she could raise her daughter, to a woman that spent many days sick from radiation and chemo, these campaigns are completely offensive.

This is a great post from a survivor and I think sums up most of their thoughts on this:

The thought of seeing bra-less women flaunting two body parts that I have lost to cancer — more than I already see this on a regular day — does not feel all that supportive.  In fact, it feels quite the opposite

And as my Mama said:

It’s as much as them saying “Look, I have them and you don’t.”

I don’t understand how a day where women are encouraged to share photos of their braless breasts is to be “supportive” for women who are living with or who have died from breast cancer, or who have managed to ‘complete’ the arduous treatments and disfiguring surgeries required to put them into remission.

Answer this question: What does taking that bra off do? Does it bring research, awareness or education?

National No Bra Day was started in July of 2011 by Anastasia M. Doughnuts.  It was started through a Facebook event page and had 400,000 supporters.  It was so successful that it was repeated the following July.  Then someone had the bright idea to have a second No Bra Day annually on October 13th to piggyback on Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  The event page on Facebook for No Bra Day is quite clear in that the occasion is meant to celebrate breasts.  It doesn’t even mention breast cancer until the very last paragraph by stating “Breast Cancer is something you should take seriously and be checked for”.

This day, which many buy into, is nothing more than sexualizing breast cancer.  It’s sexualized by the slang used such as “Save 2nd base”, “Feel your boobies” and “Save the ta-tas”.  It’s sexualized by the provocative imagery used to raise funds and visibility.  It’s sexualized in the names of organizations created to promote breast cancer awareness, such as Coppafeel and Boobstagram.  It’s sexualized by social media users who use the campaign as a guise to post pictures of themselves topless with no intention of promoting breast cancer awareness or donating to research charities.  We’ve sexualized breast cancer so much that a popular porn site has even decided to cash in on it, donating a penny to charity for every 30 “boob-themed videos” watched.

And that, my friends, is sad.

Breast cancer isn’t sexy, it’s devastating.

It’s not only devastating but often times is also disfiguring.  Many women suffer with body image issues after breast cancer.  Ann Marie Giannino-Otis, who runs the blog Stupid Dumb Breast Cancer, said

“My breasts don’t even look anything like what they used to. They’re completely different. We look in the mirror after breast cancer: Our nipples are gone; we have scars that go across our chests; we have either gained a lot of weight or lost weight. We’ve changed completely. We’re not accepting of this body, and now you’re telling us to take off a bra?” she said. “What breast cancer is is taking off our breasts, having a lumpectomy, making them completely unerotic. So you’re sexualizing something that’s not sexy. It’s disgusting.“

Cancer patients don’t have time for cuteness when it comes to the potentially fatal disease they’re faced with.  They do, on the other hand, have an appreciation for realism and action.  Ask a real survivor what you can do to promote breast cancer awareness or how you can honor her fight.  Their answers would include get a mammogram, run a race, donate to the Susan G. Komen Foundation or simply be there for someone fighting a battle.  Taking your bra off isn’t the answer.

National No Bra Day is all about the breasts, not the women attached to them.