And Excerpt From "Emerging Through Spider Webbs" For You...My Friends

Here is a small excerpt from "Emerging Through Spider Webbs" that I will share with all of my friends here. You all have helped me in some way, great or small...all were and are important. I hope you enjoy

Sitting here in the bay window of my living room, it's easy to stare out into the waters of The Chesepeake Bay and mentally drift off. I can see the calm rippling waters and a tall lighthouse in the distance
Just for a moment, I can imagine that I am standing atop that single lighthouse and then in a single flash.... an image emerges of me being thrown down into the very waters it is nestled in....clinging and fighting to stay a float
Only the familiar sound of my cat, Black Velvet, reminds me that I am OK and that I am here in the favorite room of my home that I share with my husband, Mark.
This window seat and the gorgeous view before it are the perfect place to reflect on the journey that has brought me here to this point in my life and a moment to think ahead to the future that awaits me.

Mary calls from the kitchen and reminds me that my lunch is ready. She has been with Mark since he was a child. Now,she helps to take of me. She is in her late 60's, extremely funny and loves to chat. She works for us three days a week. Cleaning and washing mostly. Bless her heart, at times she thinks she can take care of everything and everyone. But, In truth, I am not used to someone taking care of me ALL the time. I am used to taking care of myself. I can not get used to the idea of someone wanting to do anything for me.

My parents married early in their lives. My mother only fifteen and my father a mere nineteen. Two years later and a miscarriage before, I was born. At this time, my father was an addict to alcohol and women. When I was six months old my father physically assaulted my mother and during this incident he accidently knocked over a space heater causing the home to catch on fire. My mother,screaming, ran outside while my father drunkingly attempted to extinguish the flames and in doing this inadvertenly caught his leg on fire. Running outside to extinguish the flames my mother asked him where I was. His reply......."He's still inside the house."

My mother ran back inside the burning home and retrieved me from the play pen that I was occupying. My mother rescued me that night.....something she has had to do throughout the majority of my life thus far. The house in the end was lost. I lost something to that night......my parents.
My grandmother gave my mother an ultimatum. Leave my father and return home or stay in an abusive situation. Either way, she was taking me to live with her and my grandfather. My mother chose to stay with my father. I moved on.