Fort Jackson, NY has no fort.  It was just one of the ironies of my childhood.  What it did have was a single road through the town that connected a close knit community of about 250 people.  A single post office that later closed as it combined with the post in a neighboring village.  A single store.  Also closed.  A single church,  a beach, a tennis court, and  a Pee Wee Baseball Team.  All no longer exist in the tiny hamlet, yet my memories of them are bright and brilliant.

 

I rode my bike to that post office frequently during the summers.  It was not a freestanding building.  It was in the mail lady’s home, a one and a half story traditional home with a small porch.  She would let me help her sort the mail, placing it in the appropriate slots for the recipient.

Other summer days I spent at the beach or the river.  Fishing, swimming, climbing hills and trees,  exploring the caves along the Raquette River, flipping larger rocks over to see what kinds of little villages teemed underneath. I poked pill bugs and inspected ant hills.  I watched centipedes speed away, wondering if they really had 100 little feet.  In the small brook that wound its way to the larger river we searched for crawdaddies and frogs, taking them home in a Velveeta cheese box.

 

I played alongside the boys in the hamlet.  Mostly the three Collette boys, who were our neighbors across the street.  There were not many girls my age.  They didn’t take it easy on me because I was a girl.  Some days I hated them for that, but as I entered secondary school and began to stand out athletically among my peers, I knew I owed a portion of that ability to the boys that tackled me in the football games we played in our neighbor’s yard, relentlessly whipped the ball at me when we played catch, and teased me when I lost at another game of Around the World.  I worked harder and practiced more to compete at their level. In the 80s I watched the Oakland Athletics go to the World Series on a little black and white television that my mom let me take to my bedroom.  I didn’t understand the concept of gender, and thought some day it would be great to play in the MLB.  I thought I would be just as skilled as Mark McGwire on 1st base, but as quick as Ricky Henderson offensively.   That dream died as soon as I realized women weren't recognized by the MLB. We finally got cable when I was in 9th grade. I spent hours watching the US Open and Wimbledon.  My idols were Gabriella Sabatini and Martina Navritalova. I often dreamt of becoming a famous tennis player and I think had my parents had the money to support my endeavors, I could have been a talented tennis player and may have gone far.   Unfortunately, we were living in the dregs of poverty and there were days we were eating mayonnaise sandwiches.  Poverty and the shame of it was a contributing factor to many of my decisions in my adolescence.  I explore that issue more in my book Rain Falling on Sunshine.

 

The Collettes still live in Fort Jackson.  They were and still are my second family.  They owned a massive home built also in the turn of the century.  It had a basement and an attic that we explored, but the majority of our time we spent either playing in the field alongside the barn, riding our bikes in the long driveway, or in the barn.  There is something about witnessing the realities of life and death within the context of nature that at some point grew into a foundation of philosophy for me.  Despite frequenting church, I began to to see the glory of nature as a spirituality lacking in bible classes and the priest’s sermon.  I had begun questioning the existence of a singular God when I was 8 when my baby brother died.  The questioning continued into my teenage years as I experienced an onslaught of obstacles and I wondered how a merciful God could cause such suffering.  I lived with a foot in two spiritual worlds and only realized it in college as I studied Thoreau and Emerson, transcendentalists who emphasized the way nature could transform the human condition.  I continue to struggle with reconciling two beliefs, nature which focuses on the balance of all life and Christianity, which puts man at the helm in controlling his destiny.

 

I struggled fitting in with my peers in elementary school.  I think I felt a disconnect because I was experiencing so many challenges in my home life and I didn’t think any kids could relate.  I felt that they were “normal” and I was not.  I felt that they couldn’t possibly understand what it was to be me.  I had watched my brother die, lived on constant alert due to my step-father’s alcoholism, experienced sexual abuse, and was reminded daily of our poverty.  It is possible I resented my peers for their normal, knowing they had something I did not and that it was not likely I would ever have it.  

 

In high school, my step-dad spent many years sober and as I got involved with athletics, I made friends.  I was lucky that I also had a natural aptitude for learning, most likely due to my mom’s vigilance in ensuring we loved to read.  Visits to the library were free, so we spent a lot of time at the library in Hopkinton, a town only a few miles away.  I enjoyed reading mostly because it was like a drug to me.  It took me to another world, and I forgot about my life for a while.  The other area I enjoyed was sports.  Unfortunately, until I was in tenth grade, I was only allowed to play one sport season per year.  In 7th grade I chose basketball and played on the JV team. I owe credit to my Phys Ed teacher, Rose Bronchetti, for encouraging me to play at all.  I don’t know that at that point I even realized I had a talent for sports.   In grade 8, I switched to softball, where I played JV, then made the Varsity team in grade 9.  That first year playing Varsity for Joe Jubinville had a huge impact. I received some remarkable accolades.  I was very proud of myself when I made All Northern Second Team, then even more so when I made All State Fourth team.  I owe a huge debt of gratitude to these two mentors who provided the platform and encouragement for me to begin to believe in myself.  

 

There was one other teacher at St. Lawrence Central who took an interest in me.  Chris Compo-Martin was my senior year English teacher.  While I was not really that interested in learning about Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in A Country Churchyard” I had a great deal of respect for this woman who genuinely cared about me.  At some point during the late winter, she asked me if I’d like to be published in our local newspaper, The Courier Observer.  Her husband, Ryne, was the editor.  She arranged an apprenticeship of sorts and I think that made me feel valued as a serious writer.  I began to write more in my journals at home (I’d been keeping a diary since my Mom gave me one in 4th grade for Easter).  I wrote less about what was happening in my life and more creatively.  I began to explore my feelings about nature, the questions I had about my purpose in the world, and the impact of my relationships on the development of my identity.  My writing took a change in direction and became much more complex and profound.  I entered a few pieces of that writing in competitions and was published by the Iliad Press. 

 

I continued to write in that style for the following five years while I attended SUNY Plattsburgh, majoring in journalism.  During that time my parents split for good and that had a huge impact on both my writing and my personal life.  At the time, I was finishing my senior year and living with my boyfriend, who had encouraged me to pursue teaching as a career.  He was following that career path as well.  I was working two jobs, one at Public Safety and the other at Ritz Camera, developing films.  I received a call at Ritz Camera that shook my world.  My little sister, Amanda, who was 15 at the time, called to tell me she was quitting school.  She had been pulled out of the school she was in when my mom moved to Malone to live with her boyfriend.  Amanda tried to transition at Malone and failed.  My mom tried homeschooling and that too failed.  

I was standing in front of my coworkers when she gave me the terrible news and I burst into tears.  I went to the back, as far as the phone cord would let me, and begged her not to quit.  I knew that if she didn’t get a high school diploma,there was a good chance she would end up back in the cycle of poverty in which we’d grown up.

 

I could not convince her to change her mind.  She said she would not return to school unless she went back to Parishville-Hopkinton, where she’d been enrolled before my mom moved.  I went home that night to my apartment and shared the news with Dan, who later would become my husband.  He was a man of action.  He and I decided that when I graduated that May, we would move back to the area that I’d grown up, but to Hopkinton.  I consulted with my Mom.  She agreed she would sign over guardianship of Amanda.  So, Amanda became my responsibility.  She completed her senior year living with Dan and me while I worked and completed my Master’s degree at SUNY Potsdam.  When she enrolled at SUNY Potsdam the following year, I knew that we had both won a major victory.

 

Dan was student teaching English in Malone at the time and there was a retirement in the ENglish department and he slid right into the position.

 After my student teaching, I substituted in Brasher and Parishville.  Every day I drove to sub in Brasher I passed a gorgeous Victorian house with an attached carriage house.  It was deserted and neglected and for sale.  I fell in love.  Dan and I paid 16,000 for the house in the fall of 2001.  We closed in the January, the same time I got my first teaching position at Salmon River Central School.  We spent many months working on the house almost every night.  His grandfather supplied us a loan.  My grandfather did much of the labor at the house, including plumbing and electrical.  Both of our families came together to help us bring the house back to its glory.  We moved in late spring.  Dan proposed in December and we decided not to have a traditional wedding.  We married in August of 2003 on Goose Rocks Beach in Maine.  Our closest family and friends were in attendance.  We welcomed our first daughter, Madeline, the following year. I nearly died having her.  Not in labor, but afterward when my placenta refused to deliver. 

 

Madeline didn’t have stitch of hair for about a year so I had to dress her in pink.  Otherwise people would say, “He’s so cute.” I got tired of correcting them.  At one point she was wearing a pretty multicolored fall sweater (with no pink) and a woman at Price Chopper decided to coo at her.  She asked, “What’s his name?”  I replied, “Gabriel.”  It wasn’t worth the time to explain to a stranger.  At this time Dan and I had begun antiquing.  We loved finding treasures for our old house.  At my first antique auction with my Great Aunt Kate and Great Uncle whom we called Nig, I immediately became addicted.  Dan and I spent a year (well, Dan mostly) transforming our attached carriage house into an antique and collectible shop.  I was also selling profitably on E-bay.  

 

Madeline was not quite a year old when we found out I was pregnant again.  Elizabeth entered the world in the spring of 2006, early.  I was due in April but after a terrible car accident in January, I began to carry an excessive amount of fluid in the amniotic sac.  I went into labor many times. The breaking point was when I went into labor at school.  I was now teaching at Massena Central School District.  Contractions were a couple minutes apart.  I was taken to Massena Hospital where they gave me a shot of Breathine to stop the contractions.  I was with my mom.  I immediately knew something was wrong.  My entire body began to freeze up and I couldn’t move.  I watched as my blood pressure began to plummet.  A buzzer sounded and the nurse ran in then ran out.  I had an anaphylactic reaction.  

 

After that I went on bedrest until an amniocentesis determined her lungs were developed enough to come into the world.    She too, had no hair for a year.  The first thing her sister said to her when she got home was “Baby out,” and she pointed to the door.  

Teaching, having an antique business and two children under the age of two wore on my marriage, and Dan and I split in 2007.  I truly had no idea that he was so unhappy. I thought our complications were normal.  I still loved him and didn’t want our marriage to end.  He did not feel that way.

 

This was a dark time in my life and more than once I wondered if being dead would be better than being alive.  I’m glad I found the will to continue.  I believe it was mostly due to the two beautiful daughters that I endured through that period.  That and Dan had a girlfriend, and as I was still very bitter, I decided if I killed myself, then she would be my daughters’ mother.  That was not going to happen.  My antique business closed.  I moved out of the house (he refused and I didn’t want to fight). I agreed to split time with the girls 50/50, knowing that although I hated him at that time for his part in our divorce, that he was a good father and I wanted that for my daughters.  I eventually found and bought a house in the village where I was teaching.  I was having a hard time paying my school loans, the bills, and the business loan for a business I no longer had (I accepted the debt from the business since his name was on no papers and mine was on the official document.  We had about 20,000 in debt and the liquidation at auction only brought in 3,000). I swallowed my pride and filed for bankruptcy in the fall of 2008.  It was another dark time in my life.

 

For the following seven years I searched.  I searched for meaning.  I had mostly stopped writing and had completely stopped being active in any athletic competition when I was with Dan, focusing more on activities that we both liked.  I really had no friends outside of our marriage and those we did have were his friends.  I lost them, too, in the divorce.  I was lost.  Dan and I had been together for ten years.  I’d divulged my secrets, trusted him, and he’d abandoned me.  My identity was wrapped in him.  I didn’t know how I would go on.

 

I began seeing a therapist and secretly for at least a year immediately following the break up, I prayed my husband would change his mind.  It was difficult for me to see that he and I were really not right for each other.  I was too swept up in the idea of the family and future that I’d thought was going to be.  

 

The therapist helped.  But I knew if I wanted to move on, the wallowing in self pity would need to stop.  It was painful every step of the way, but I began to participate in activities that used to bring me joy.  I started playing volleyball in an intramural league, I began coaching softball at the school, and joined a women’s fast pitch softball team in the summer.  I also began doing things I’d felt were frivolous: getting my nails done, buying myself new clothes and going to the salon.  As I got involved, my circle of friends widened.  I actually had a social life.  And most interesting, people whose marriages or relationships were in a state of crisis, began to see me for advice.  In the beginning it was people I knew.  Over time, friends recommended me to their friends, and I began to coach women and men in their relationships.  

 

I wish I could say the process was seamless.  But I would be lying.  Since when is life that graceful?  For a while, it seemed to work, and then some random event would incite a memory or a feeling of guilt or shame, and I would emotionally crash.  The memorable moment was my first Thanksgiving without my girls.  I thought I was dealing well with it.  It wasn’t until the Eve when I went to drop them off that I broke down.  I drove away with my tears and my world crashing down.  I drove straight to the bar where my my good friend at the time was the bartender.  He took one look at me and lined up the shots.  He got me a taxi that night and I staggered into my house with a soft halo of snow all around.  The next day I was to host a THanksgiving for my immediate family.  It was impossible.  I felt like someone had shut my head in a steel door.  I spent the day alternating between vomiting and tears, wondering how my life had come to that.

 

But eventually, I began to balance.  I took a trip alone out west.  I landed in Denver and spent a couple days with my aunt and uncle.  I rented a car and drove across Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, before returning to Denver.  It was a powerful experience.  I saw Arches National Park, the Grand Canyon, visited Sedona where I circled the stupa three times with a prayer in my heart.  I also had a dream vision the same night.  A few months later I met a man who I dated for a year.  Although the relationship ended, I began to see myself as strong, independent and beautiful because of it.

 

I had also enrolled in courses to work toward a Building Leadership/School Leadership Certificate and I started a faithful work out and clean eating regiment with the support of a dear friend.  My grandfather had suffered a heart attack and I decided enough was enough.  I needed to take care of my health.  Everything seemed to be in place.  I was happy.  I felt satisfied with my life and my ambitions.  I had a career goal and I’d started writing my childhood memoir titled, “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants.”   I felt that I knew my path.

 

It seemed that nothing could possibly go wrong.  But God knows much more than we do, and he had some other plans for me.

In January of 2014, Martin Luther King Day, I woke in such pain that I cried out to my daughters.  It was my back.  A crippling pain in my back.  Fast forward through a month of oxycodone, muscle relaxants and ice packs alternated with heating pads and I was in surgery at Crouse Memorial in Syracuse for a discectomy and fusion for my cervical spine at C5/6.  Dr. Canute was very concerned about the nerve damage in my left arm and the relentless pain.  I had never known such crippling pain existed.  While most patients would be encouraged to try alternate methods before a surgery, my condition was drastic.  The nerve was wedged tightly where the disc had basically collapsed.  My body healing on its own looked hopeless.

 

During the surgery my doctor noticed my thyroid was enlarged.  I was given an order for an ultrasound as soon after as possible.  This was February 27th.  May of the same year, the enlarged thyroid had grown into a very noticeable bump in my neck.  I swore to my new doctor, an endocrinologist, that I could feel it growing.  She assured me that it was rarely cancer in these cases.  The biopsy showed that it was a tumor, but the results for malignancy were inconclusive.  My new doctor, Dr. Bettez, an Ear, Nose, Throat specialist, would perform the surgery.  During the surgery they would biopsy it.  In his office the day he explained the procedure, how he would cut my neck just below where Canute had, and how he would try to keep the incision in the fold, I nearly fainted.  I couldn’t deal with another surgery.  I didn’t want it.  My neck was still numb from the previous and my nerves were all jumbled up.  When I touched my neck, I could feel it in my chin.  

 

But I had no choice.  I had to have the surgery.  He explained to me the possible consequences. If it were cancer, I would need to have the entire thyroid removed.  I would be on medication for the rest of my life.  This was heartbreaking.  I had become a vegan at that point and eating very clean.  I didn’t want to believe it could be cancer and I didn’t want to have to take medication daily.

 

What was supposed to be a five or six hour surgery turned into eleven hours.  My Mom told me that at eight hours, she began to think the worst. 

Afterward, in a foggy haze, I overheard the staff discussing it.  I was vomiting from the morphine and crying.  Crying because I knew it was cancer.

It was the worst hangover I’d ever had.  I vomited for twelve hours.  The nurses insisted they would put medication through my IV to stop the nausea.  I begged them not to.  I wanted to get the drugs out of my system.  My sisters alternated holding the little bag for my vomit.  I couldn’t wipe my own mouth afterward.  I realized how lucky I was to have family. 

 

In July, I had radioactive treatment In Burlington and I was assured that the cancer was gone in a follow up, but that I would need to have bloodwork regularly to check up on the status.  

 

Just because the cancer was gone doesn’t mean I was better.  Emotionally, I was a wreck.  I began to think the most outrageous, dark thoughts.  I dissected death from every angle.  I imagined my death in more ways than I would like to admit.  I imagined the death of all my closest loved ones.  Whenever I was alone, this usually resulted in me weeping over the finality of life.  I suppose the hardest point came when I realized that someday my own daughters would die and I would not be there to hold them as they each faced that final moment.  I would not be there because I would be dead.  I felt a deep anger and sadness about the idea that as a parent I had chosen to bring a life into the world that would ultimately know this pain.  

 

Impossibly, it was during the spring that I also met Brock, the man who later asked me to marry him.  A mutual friend introduced us.  He and I had gone to high school together, but he was four years younger.  While I knew his older brother, I really did not know him.  But, he was going through a divorce, and feeling that I should reach out to help another in pain, we met.  That was in April, 2014.   Had I not been physically and emotionally facing challenges, I doubt that I would have let my guard down enough to let another man in.  It was as though all stars aligned at this moment.  I needed him and he needed me.  

 

He had three young children and it was quite some time before we introduced our children to each other.  I never had introduced my daughters to any of the men I dated.  I explained to them that when they finally met a man that I was dating, that meant he was not just a good fit for me, but a good fit for our family.  He met Elizabeth first.  She asked him to play a game of softball, at which she promptly cheated and beat him.  After he left, she said, “He’s going to be a good step-dad someday.”  At that point I chuckled, as we’d only been together a couple months and I thought such an idea was premature.  But she was right.  He and I have been together nearly two years now.  He has seen me at my absolute worst and loves me despite it.  We laugh like high school kids.  We talk about serious issues.  We share our doubts and we share our secrets.  I’ve finally found a man I can trust.  Meeting him seemed a natural extension of my journey.  Everyday is a crazy day in our house when we have all five children together, but it’s a good crazy.  We work hard at communicating.  We work hard to blend our family in a way that is loving yet involves structure.  We have successes and we have failures.  We continue to learn.

 

It seemed the illness of 2014 was fading into the past, but the summer of 2015, while playing in a softball game, I suddenly felt an overwhelming exhaustion.  It reminded me of how tired I was when the synthroid had not yet balanced out.  I told Ashley, who leads the team, that I just couldn’t play another inning.  This had never happened before.  I don’t ever step out on my team.  Something was wrong.  After feeling tired for a couple weeks, another symptom accompanied it: a terrible pain in my wrists and knees.  Also, my mind was foggy.  I’d drive somewhere and forget where I was going and have to pull over and talk myself through it.   I scheduled an appointment with my doctor and after blood tests, it was revealed I had been bitten by a tic and had developed  Lyme disease.  The blood work also showed an ANA positive result.  My physician suggested we do three weeks of antibiotic, then we’d deal with the Ana result.  She said it indicated a possibility of Lupus.  Eventually, I saw a rheumatologist, who ran even more blood tests and x-rays on my back.  Arthritis in my back, which I knew, but the blood work revealed an indication not for Lupus, but a different disease called Sjogren’s Syndrome.  

 

During the summer, I did find some inspiration to write.  I decided I needed to finish my book.  I changed the name to Rain Falling on Sunshine.  I worked whenever the children were not at home.  I finally had a product that was close to finished. It was about 180 pages.  I took Part 2 to my friend, Wendy, to revise.  Afterward, I reworked it and reworked it and edited it and spent countless hours reading it for any sequencing issues or character flaws.  Finally, I had a copy I believed in.  I self published.  

 

And that is where I am now.  I feel that my life has been a whirlwind of intense moments followed by a plateau of healing and recovery.  It’s taken some time, but I know that this is what life is all about.

 

I recently signed my first 7 books.  I was asked to write an inspirational note. This was the first time someone had ever said, “Inspire me.”  Previously, my inspiration just came in my writing. I was “moved” to write and the words flowed naturally.  I hope this will eventually happen on the spot.  For now, here is what I wrote:

 

As adults, we can’t help but search for the ‘meaning’ of life, always looking forward, hoping some epiphany will occur and we’ll be caught in the magic of a colossal moment in which the secret will be revealed.  The truth is, we need to stop focusing on where we’re going and realize we are already here.  The secret is in both the boring and the brilliant.  It’s in the everyday blessings.  The simple joys.  It’s in the sunshine.  And it’s in the Rain Falling on the Sunshine.

 

Peace and Blessings,
April