Insert guest speaker here

Hi everyone!  This is Gee, husband to Amelia.  My wonderful wife worked all day today and came home and dutifully started cleaning the house and is now fixing dinner for us.  While she is in the kitchen, busy doing what she does best...I am going to sneak a story in.  My story.

When I was growing up, there was always a lot of yelling, pushing, shoving, name calling that went on.  As far as I knew, it was normal and probably most homes dealt with the same things that I did.  My parents got a divorce finally.  That was probably for the best, considering the drinking and fighting that could be counted on.  I remember the day my dad moved out of our family home.  I was so mad.  Mad at the world.

I got a lot of spankings growing up.  I guess I was a hard kid to handle.  Sometimes I think I was punished too harshly but hey, what kid didn't think that, huh?  If I wasn't being spanked with someone's hand, I was being hit with baling straps.  Those hurt like a son of a bitch, let me tell you.  Once I peed my pants while playing in the sandbox and my mom beat my ass.  You'd have thought I beat the shit out of the neighbor kid or something.  I was a kid.  I had a small bladder.  Sue me. 

 I was diagnosed with ADHD and that appeared to be a challenge for both of my parents.  At 9 years old, I was put into a children's psych hospital because my parents were tired of trying to control me.  My mom would say I was too much for her to handle so she would send me off to my dad's house.  When he got tired of dealing with me, he would send me back to mom.  

Eventually I guess they got tired of the hassle of it all.   I spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals.  I was probably around 12 years old the last time my mom came to visit me.  She had given up on me and no longer had a son.   My dad came to see me (maybe) once a year.  

But my grandparents came to see me.  They have always been  my biggest support and have always shown me unconditional love.  I don't know where I would be without them to this day.

Don't get me wrong.  I have good memories too.  I remember painting a fence with my dad and feeling close to him.  Feeling like I was really accomplishing something by his side.  Once, he let me ride along while he delivered diesel fuel.  I remember how fun it was riding in that gas truck.  Even today, when I am driving down certain roads, I remember stopping to fill someone's tank with him.  Sometimes it even brings a smile to my face.

Being in an institution though made for bad things to follow.  I had no role models to teach me social skills.  I had staff that told me what they thought I wanted to hear or else they told me some complete opposites.  I never really learned how to make friends.  Most of you might think that's a pretty easy thing to do but it isn't.  It is learned behavior, trust me.  Because of this upbringing, I learned to be a loner.  Depending on nobody but myself when the time came.

To this day, I still have ADD.  I guess getting older takes the hyper out of a person.  

At 19 years old, I was finally able to go out into the world and see what I could do for myself.  How I could support myself.  Going from one program to another, learning how to get a job, pay my bills and be on my own.  My very first jobs were mowing yards and helping anyone out that wanted my help.  I was the odd-job specialist.

When I was 22 years old I became a father for the first time.  When I saw my little baby girl for the very first  time, I knew joy... maybe for the first time in my life.  I was proud of myself for being part of something so wonderful, so gorgeous.  I loved cuddling with her.  She slept on my chest for hours at a time.  I didn't ever want  to let go of her.  I didn't sleep the first week after she was born because I was afraid of SIDS getting to my  little sweetheart.  I had heard too many bad stories and didn't want that to happen to my baby.  I would just listen to her breathe.

2 years later, I became a father again.  This time to a little  man.  Everybody says he looked just like me.  I guess he did. And does.   I felt like I had finally gotten the family that I always wanted.  I had a woman in my life that I thought I wanted and my life was finally coming together.  My circle had been started and completed.  He was a good baby.  Very quiet and passive.  I slept with him a lot too.  I wanted nothing more than to protect my family.


Moving on about 2 more years, the mother of my children decided she no longer wanted the responsibilities of being a mother or a wife.  Even though she wasn't my wife, she may as well have been.  I mean, we did have children together.  We were faithful to one another.  We lived under the same roof.  Slept in the same bed.  The only difference between a married couple and us, was that marriage certificate.


She never once cleaned the house.  While I was out making ends meet, by scrapping junked vehicles, or working on vehicles for other people, working as a hired hand, doing whatever I had to do to put food on our table, she was running around, spending money or sitting around watching tv.  She had no desire to clean and no desire to work.  

I honestly thought, even though we lived in a house that was in the middle of badly needed repair, needed cleaned up or wasn't up to some people's standards, I felt like my life was so much better than it had EVER been.  I knew it was under control but just like that... I lost it all.


My kids were ripped from our home and I was told that their mother wanted nothing to do with them.   Department of Human Services came to our house and stole my children from me.  In the name of the law.  You can't imagine how much it hurts when I see someone live in filth, yet have their kids by their side. It isn't right and it isn't fair.  I may not be the smartest man on the face of this earth but I love my kids more than any words can say.  There isn't anything I wouldn't do for them.  To this day.  

That's why I sit here and wait.  I go to my job.  I do what I have to do.  And wait.  Because someday I plan on seeing them again.  At their discretion.  And that day will probably be the best day of my life.

At a time when I was getting my life back in order; back to some normalcy; SHE walked into my life.  And she needed her car fixed.  So after work one day, I went to my friends' house, where she was, to try to fix this car and my friend introduced me to this gal.  I looked at my friend and told her that I thought her friend  was kinda stuck up.  I was shy and she made me nervous.  She didn't have a shy bone in her body.  This gal tried, time and again, to "make a play" for me, or so she says, but I couldn't get over the fact that someone like "her" would even consider someone like "me."   "What does she see in me?"

I played hard-to-get.  She would find reasons to come to my apartment and I didn't know what I was supposed to do.  The first couple of times, I met her at the door and took what she brought over, thanked her and closed the door.  Little did I know, I was shutting it on her heart the whole entire time.  One day she grabbed me, right there in her friends' front yard, and planted a big ole kiss on me.  I didn't know what to think.  Except that I wanted some more of that!

Finally we went out on a date.  I took her to the races.  We  had a good time.  We did everything together.  We would go fishing till the wee hours of the morning and came home long enough to take a nap and get right back up to go to work.  We laughed at each other.  We laughed at life.  

I ended up buying a house.  I let her pick it out though.  I  wanted her to have everything she wanted.  And she  picked out a really nice house too.  I was so excited to  be a homeowner and so excited to have her beside me on this new journey.  I had never had any one person, place so much faith in me like she has.  She is constantly telling me what I can do...or sometimes where I can go...even when I tell her I can't.  

I love you dear.  I hope we have many years together to laugh, as we always have; to have fun, as we always do; and to fight, because we are so good at it.  I hope some day you can feel the power of my love and the importance of you in my life.