why mile 191?

this is a hard post for me. explaining mile 191.

i feel that i should write a bit about it now. with thanksgiving coming up, it is this time of year that gets me thinking so much about my past. my story. my pain.

i am writing my story in bits. my mile 191.

i haven't gotten to much that will explain where i was and why this particular mile means so much to me. this will tell.

why mile 191?

when my mother abandoned me i was 16 years old. i had told her about the abuse, blown the whistle per say. my little sister was 9 years old. from the time she was about 4 years old i had been teaching her that her body was hers. that she was NEVER to let anyone touch her or look at her under her clothes. i guess you could say that i knew enough, even when i was a 10 year old girl, to know that no one should be doing those things to a little girl. he had started on me at 9, and so, when she turned 9 i guess he started looking in her direction.

it happened once. he touched her. she said no. and she came to me. that was the beginning and the end of my sisters experience with sexual abuse.

my baby sister. who i love as dearly as i love my own children, even today. she went through so much. not the sexual abuse, but other things, things that have poisoned her mind and soul, and destroyed a part of her heart. she is the most amazing being. she is a wonderful mother today. she is able to provide for her family, she paints, decorates, she has a million abilities, and i love to see her and delight in who she has become. these other things she went through cause her to weep, bring me to weep, and ache for some semblance of anything that is normal.

i will never regret the amount of abuse i suffered to know that he left her alone. the one time it happened was more that it should have been.

i had always told him to leave her alone. come to me but leave her alone. why couldn't he have just left her alone.

so i went to my mom. the mom who didn't love me as a child, who neglected me as a young woman. the mother who was absent from me as if she had abandoned me at birth.

i sometimes wish she had.

i went to her. a girl should be able to go to her mom.

i told her about the abuse. about what he did. about him raping me. about him raping my friend. i told her that he had touched my sister.

she looked at me with a cold blank look. told me that whatever happened was my fault. i had somehow brought it on. that i was to go to bed and she would talk to me in the morning.

my step father had left the house. i had told him i was going to tell, and he better not be there when i got home. he never came back.

i had a friend walk me to my house. i know that had she not he would have killed me. he chased my friend all the way home. she got into her door and he slammed his body against the door.

to this day she doesn't know how she locked the door, or how she ran home so fast.



the following morning my mom woke me up. she told me that everyone was angry that i had made daddy leave, that i needed to pack a few things and stay with a friend until they were not so angry.

i left. when i went home the following weekend, the entire house was empty, except for the belongings in my room. it was her way of making me not exist in her life anymore. i was left behind, and there was no looking back.

i became a ward of the state. my friend took me into her home. her parents adopted me because my own father wouldn't take me.

her mom and dad were so kind. yes, again kind. they loved me, they were protective. they listened, and they were so patient with all that i was going through and had been through. they really were so amazing.

i went back to school, my senior year. i quit drinking. i hung out with kids my own age. this life felt really blessed.

i missed my family, my sister, my brothers. i ached every day to know if they were okay. i wouldn't find them for 6 years.

my adopted mom had some addictions. she was addicted to pain killers. i could see in her eyes a reflection of the pain that i felt. i always knew in my heart that she loved me so much because she understood pain. i began to realize that my new family had it's own dynamics. drama and sadness is everywhere.

we are human beings, we experience life, and some of it hurts really bad.

my new sisters were amazing. they loved me and took me as if i had always been there. i had a new brother as well. he was funny and nice to me. i felt like i had a family.

then, as thanksgiving approached, there was a family fight. i will never understand as the events unfolded, what it was all about. but this was to be the turning point in my new chapter.

with the family argument my adopted mom left. she ran away.

i understand running away, i always feel the urgency. i have slept in my car so many times. i have sat out side of the rape crisis center. i understand wanting to run from it all.

this time running would have severe consequences and change the course of all the lives that she touched. her daughters, her husband, her son, me.

my mom, that is what i felt she was; in three months she loved me more than my own mother ever did. i, to this day, know and feel that she loves me. she understands me. and when i am quiet, pondering, reflective, i feel as if she is there, telling me to hang on. help is coming, stay strong. she is our guardian angel. i feel her. if you are hurting she is the kind of angel that i know will come to watch over you too. so be still, ponder, and allow your self to feel that you are not alone. for she is there.


i say this 'she is there' because the turning point, the bend in the road of my journey was the end of hers.

she died, at mile 191.

she parked her car, walked up to a place that she found peace, and there she found her life's end. she was taken to a better place, a place where the pain should end, i am sure she thought.

i believe that when people take their own life they can not undo the damage that it causes those of us left behind. we needed her, we needed her here. the lives of those who loved her, those she loved, would never be the same. i don't believe her pain ended. i think she hurts more, for now she can not be with the ones that she loves, the ones that she surly misses.

she reached her breaking point. the point we are all going to reach in this life. with pain and trials, and pure intense despair. she chose to end her life, at mile 191.

this becomes so significant to me many years later.

as we often drive the canyon, past this mile 191. i think of her. i think of what pain she experienced. she didn't live long enough for me to ask her why she hurt. she died before i had the chance.

i think of her as i drive past mile 191, i have stopped many times, now stopping with my own children. the place where grandma died.

i say to them, no you don't know this grandma, you never met her. she was gone long ago. she was wonderful to me.

the pain i feel that my kids will never know what it is like to have such an amazing grandma, they will never know her, how wonderful she was.

she made that choice.

and here i am, in my life, suffocated my by pain. what will i do?

What choice do i make when i reach mile 191?

what will i do with my journey. every day, as i see the mile markers on the highways, the interstates, i think to myself as the miles pass:

what am i doing, and what will I do with my mile 191?

it is up to me.

the week commemorates for me the 20th year grieving the loss of my new mom.

20 years since she made her mile 191 choice. 20 years of wondering how different the lives of my adopted father, the man who walked me down the isle at my wedding, how different would his life be, with his sweetheart. how would my brothers life be altered. my sisters, would they be happier, of course. we miss her. we can't get her back, or the years, the pain is here to stay.

so i say to you, anyone who will read this:

please I beg you. think about what you will do when you get to mile 191.
what are you doing on the way there? choose to heal. don't run away. be strong enough to live. and don't do it alone.

we need each other, as we all travel the well worn road of survivor.

choose to make your journey, and your mile 191, something that you can personally find strength, hope, peace and life, and maybe a little friendship and love. don't do something that you might regret, don't give up, don't run away.

slow down maybe, as mile 191 approaches. take care of the pains, the anguish, and then drive by, knowing that the road ahead has much more to offer then the miles in the past have. courage, it is up to you.