Cracked Roots and Roses 16: Loss

With this new reality, I was no longer comfortable in sin. Sin had NEVER bothered me before, but now my conscience was seared. It was like someone turned on a morality switch, and I just KNEW. Now I know it’s the scripture: “His laws are written in their hearts” (Hebrews 8:10). I now understood those I thought were faking being good.

I didn’t have any negative thoughts toward anyone and saw people differently. Before my encounter, I thought everyone fornicated, lived with their boyfriend, and cussed like drunk sailors. I was wrong, and now these things bothered me. Before Christ, I could cuss and drink with the best of them, but now, when I heard a cuss word, it felt like a punch in the gut. I didn’t do the same stuff I used to do. Unsavory habits started to fall from my life. I didn’t think the same, and I was now always smiling. That first month, my face was sore from smiling so often. I had so much joy.

I would talk to anyone willing to listen. I was often in tears of repentance. I read the Bible like I was studying for a test. I didn’t know anything, but I would share whatever I learned. I was a full-on Bible thumper and contender for the faith. I was full of zeal but lacked knowledge, unfortunately. I also didn’t know that this is what’s known as the honeymoon period.

My wedding was coming up around this time. We had already secured a minister from the old church for the ceremony. I just needed to get it over with. I didn’t like fornicating and hated that I was living in sin. Jeremy thought all of this was stupid because none of it bothered me before. He didn’t know I was new because he wasn’t new. If you’ve authentically encountered Jesus, you recognize when someone else has as well. We belong to the same family—who doesn’t recognize family?

An older woman named Georgia, who had invited me to church from my old job, helped with all the planning, and Sue insisted I have a registry and helped me fill it with nice things. Sue also threw me a shower at her Berwyn home and got me several things off the registry. I even received a Waterford vase as a gift, not on the registry. I was more excited about the wedding than the marriage. I just wanted to be right before God.

The big day came. Nothing was going right. What could go wrong did—my hair, my home makeup job, my dress, my nails, etc. I also didn’t feel right. I felt like I was making a big mistake but shook it off as overactive nerves.

An hour before the ceremony, I stood in the bridal room waiting for 2 p.m. to come so I could get this thing over with. As I stood against the wall, willing my mind and heart to stop racing, I heard an audible voice within me say, “No, not him.” I looked to see who was talking, but it was only Georgia and me in the room. I heard it again, louder, and everything in me shook. I was now in a panic, but what else could I do? Everyone was already there.

We had been making payments for months on this room in a nursing home. What was I supposed to do? Break his heart and then go back to living in sin? Or was I supposed to break his heart and then move out? I had never heard an inward voice before, so I had no way of knowing where it came from. I just couldn’t do that to Jeremy. By the time I got halfway down the aisle, he was in tears, standing up there with the minister. It would be fine—that’s what I told myself. So the knot was tied, and the voice stopped.

Within a month of the wedding, I was looking through the Yellow Pages for a lawyer to get an annulment. It was weird; suddenly, I had no patience for his idiosyncrasies. It seemed like his chewing got louder. I had no patience for his indecisiveness and complacency. Everything he did and said was seemingly amplified.

I knew I would carry the marriage. I knew any success would come at my hands because he lacked initiative and imagination. How could I live my LIFE like this? What had I done? Suddenly, I felt trapped. I would’ve borne this gladly if he wasn’t, on top of everything else, a mama’s boy. I didn’t notice this either until we were married. I would cook, and he would come in with food his mom made for him—just enough for him.

She knew we didn’t have any money, but she didn’t send food for the family—only him. She would tell him to come home whenever he was ready. This was new because she had kicked him out when I got pregnant. One day, he cut his hand in the kitchen. I went to get towels to stop the blood, and he snatched the towel and yelled for me to call his mother. I refused because it was just a cut. He called his mama anyway. He told her he cut himself and started crying right there on the phone.

I thought things would eventually work themselves out if I just shrunk a little bit. I was young, and I just didn’t know that some people and spirits can’t be minimized. Some of us were designed to take up space.

My escape became church. I could not wait to get to church on Sundays. Jeremy stopped going soon after we completed Foundations classes, and because he didn’t go, he didn’t want me to go. That was a hard no for me. Some of the worst arguments happened when I got home from church.

One day, I was feeling sick, so I went to the doctor. Turns out I was pregnant. I hadn’t even considered that because I had just gotten off Depo-Provera. A few weeks went by, and I was starting to show. I felt no connection to the child though; that was odd. Then one day, I woke up with heavy cramps, so I went to the bathroom. I felt something come out. I thought it was my imagination—it wasn’t. There was a large clot of blood in the toilet.

It didn’t register what had just happened. So I went to the ER, and they did an ultrasound to check. There was no baby.

I wasn’t expecting to have the reaction I did. I had not been trying and had just found out, but I found myself mourning. Having the miscarriage made me want a child more than ever now. I needed to prove that I could, and I needed another distraction.

In the back of my mind, I kept thinking about the Depo-Provera I had been on faithfully for a couple of years. There was no internet back then, so I couldn’t Google side effects or hear other women’s stories. I was low income, so this form of birth control was recommended to me by my doctor. Nothing in me questioned this shot UNTIL I started to have side effects.

After giving birth, I lost all the baby weight quickly because I was always thin. I got on this shot and gained 80 pounds in the first year. I also developed adult acne. I had never had acne—not even as a teenager. The doctor said all of this was normal.

After two years, I said I wanted to get off because the weight gain wouldn’t stop. My cycle was not normal again for decades. Within the year, I finally got pregnant again.

This pregnancy was not like my daughter. I was growing, but in a weird way. My acne had become cystic, and my hair was thinning. I was always tired and stayed sick. My ninth month came quickly, and boy, was I relieved. My checkups were weekly now.

All was well until I got to work and didn’t feel him move for over an hour.