The Life She Deserves

At 16, she met him and fell in love.

At 17, she tried to convince the Justice of the Peace that she was old enough to get married.  He didn’t believe her.

At 18, she married him, against her parents wishes.

At 20, he joined the military, and at 21 she gave birth to their only child, a son.

That same year, living alone in a strange place, she discovered that the kind and loving man she married had a violent and unpredictable dark side.

At 22, her mother told her that she’d made her bed, and now she would have to lie in it.  So she did, for 52 years.

At 40, she became a grandmother.

At 45, she buried her son.

At 74, she buried her husband.

At 76, she went on a date for the first time in nearly 60 years.

At 77, a man brought her breakfast in bed for the first time in her life.

At 78, she travels, she laughs, she goes to concerts, she eats out more than she cooks at home.

At 78, she visits for a week and we sit together, night after night, sipping wine.  She tells me, with a twinkle in her piercing blue eyes, about her adventures and the gentlemen friends she has waiting for her at home.

At 78, she is finally living the life she has deserved all along… one full of happiness.