Category Archives: Unbreakable Heart 10-part Series

It’s been many years since my husband left me alone to care for my three children. I was sick. In pain all the time. I had no money. The physical and emotional abuse I had spent nearly a decade enduring had left me broken. I have come a long way in that time and woken up to more of who … Continue reading →

There’s only so long you can fight the inevitable before the inevitable wins, leaving you a walking shell of your former self. For me it was eight years. He had returned from war, injured, but still whole, at least physically. And we had finally achieved our Barbie Dream-House life: three beautiful little girls, a dog, a cat, a gorgeous house … Continue reading →

I spent six months of my second pregnancy as a single mom with an infant child in the middle of nowhere, with no family or friends. My husband spent his time hitting the bars, writing bad checks, and living on the military base, reliving his bachelor days while I lived in low income housing, went on welfare, and tried to … Continue reading →

“Honey, where is that spare checkbook that you used to buy my birthday present?” It was an innocent enough question–with unimagined consequences. Would I have asked about the checkbook if I’d known what it would lead to? Would it have happened regardless? I don’t know. That day I had a migraine. My husband offered to go on a walk with … Continue reading →

I became a mother on Halloween.  I had been in labor for three days. Three would become a significant number for me in the years to come. It was an awkward dance that night as I struggled with contractions while my husband’s family watched television in my hospital room, totally oblivious to the fact that I was laying there half … Continue reading →

“Does anyone have a cigarette?” I asked, standing outside an Irish Pub in my California hometown. I was on summer break from my college studies in New York at Sarah Lawrence.  Full of life, ideas and the sure knowledge that I was indestructible. I wasn’t proud of my recently acquired smoking habit. But in the theatre-land of New York, you … Continue reading →

I wrote of this once. In fiction. It was easier to speak in third person, hiding behind the characters I created. When he choked her to near unconsciousness, I could protect myself with that invisible wall. But it’s time. To speak out. To use my name in telling my story. For myself. For others. Because I have the words to … Continue reading →