My Best Friend and Partner...

My best friend and partner...

by Dorraine Storm-Lugo

In June of 1999, after a few years of really having a hard time of everything after losing my mother in October of 1994, divorcing the father of my children, losing my home, and then relocating back to Texas in 1998, only to have more devastation hit my life... 

In May of 1998, I got hurt in an accident while working at a truck stop, as a waitress, very busy night, slipped on some ice, I caught myself from falling flat of my butt by grabbing onto a table, never realizing I did more damage to my wrist than I had done to my foot, I strained the muscles of my right ankle, and was off work for a good bit... I realized I needed a different job, and was accepted to work as a cashier at our local Wal-Mart.... I thought my life was finally going to work out.... boy was I wrong.

A month later, my house burned down with all of my craft store supplies and crafted items, I lost almost everything I had ever owned, and my pets, two beautiful black and white miniature long hair Pekingeses, and a beautiful beloved male cockatiel, named Tweety Bird....who talked with me and danced to my music.... my son and a cousin were in the house when it caught on fire, thank God, they made it out alive and with only minor damage... my son's left eye's retina detached nasally and for a long while, we just went through the motions of existing, our local Wal-Mart donated some clothing, and immediate household items, and that began the long dark journey that I am going to try to describe in this blog, so that all understand, that life's issues really do take a toll on us all...

A month after losing my house, I realized I couldn't turn my right wrist over and it was very painful, I went to the hospital where they determined that the accident in the restaurant had torn all the cartilage in my wrist....and hand and between my bones in my arm...which needed an operation to fix, the worst part is being told at that age you have a birth defect.... my ulna bones are both too long and leaving no space between the bottom of my ulna and the bone that starts my hand...so therefore the cartilage wasn't going to heal without removing a piece of the ulna and putting it all back together with a plate and screws, so here I am in a cast for the next five months.... becoming deeply depressed, and so I decided to try to move closer to my sisters, who lived near Houston, and once again, I thought maybe my life would get back on track, but no.... not yet...it was just going to continue to get worse for a long while to come.

In March of the next year, 1999 my son was injured to his eye, which lead to an eye surgery and I realized within a month that he had lost the eyesight that he had....lived with all of his life, he was Visually impaired from birth, but now he was 15 and lost all of his vision.... that is when the epileptic seizures started up again... the next month or so was the hardest of my life, so I fell down to my knees, crying and begging God to send me a partner to get me through this toughest time of my life, ... needless to say, it was all just the beginning and I think Jehovah knew I was going to need a partner to help me survive it all, the next day I met my Marco Antonio in a laundry mat.... 

How many of you all believe in love at first sight.... we started dating, he proposed within months and we were engaged 9 months later.... we got married six months after that.... in between meeting him and our marriage, my son got sicker, and my daughter moved out of our home, and got married and was expecting her first child... I lost my daughter, and my son as I knew him to be that year, our whole life started spiraling out of control...the only thing I had to hang on to, was my faith in God, that nothing was going to be too strong for me to handle, and my new marriage, that was really already facing trials and tribulations it shouldn't have ever had to face.....

Things were okay, I lost my job and got really sick shortly after our marriage, my son and my husband bonded so well, I am going to be forever grateful for the husband that Jehovah provided me.... for I know without him, I may not have survived my life from 2000-2003.

More to come on that one soon, here are a couple of photos of us, one is from 2005 the month I had my first major stroke, and the next one is from two years ago, right before I had my last one..... <3