It was my 15th year when the guys moved into the two houses across the street.
I spent the summer in GA with my cousin, so I really didn't get to see much of them. By the time I got back they were all a very big part of our family.
I remember Danny. He lived in the house next to the one that was directly across from us. He never said too much. Always quiet, and to himself. He was a really nerdy looking guy. Still had pimples, and his glasses were as thick as soda bottle bottoms. He was thin, and had these big ears. He moved into the house directly across the street shortly after I got back from GA. My sisters and I would always sneak our leftovers to them because they didn't have much money to buy food. I remember that they all loved my moms fried ocra.
I had a crush on one of the other guys that lived across the street. He taught me how to drive, and didn't treat me as the child that everyone else did. Danny had a crush on my older married sister. She was going through a rough divorce at the time, and Danny was her protector. They were best of friends.
My family and the guys gave me a surprise birthday part for my 16th birthday. It was there that I really first noticed Danny. He was so good to my sister. He held her while she cried, and told silly jokes until she laughed.
I'd go over after school sometimes and just sit and talk to them. Sometimes him, sometimes one of the others.
Oct. 3rd, 1981
It was on this date that my family went out to dinner and dancing. I saw Danny standing across the street and ran over to invite him and the other two guys to go with us. He almost didn't accept, but my parents were footing the bill, so he agreed to go.
Danny had just gotten his orders to go overseas, so he wasn't a very happy camper.
We had a good time. We all laughed and talked. The end of the night was drawing to a close, and I asked Danny to dance. The song was "Babe I love you". When I walked into his arms for that it was like heaven opened up. I can't really describe the feeling. It was if we were made for each other, and that night was when I knew that I would one day be his wife.
We were together constantly for the next four months. Except for school and work of course. The changes in both of us were amazing. We completed each other, and together we grew. Danny left for Guam with the arrangments that he would be back in a few months. We agreed that five days after my 18th birthday I would fly to Guam to be with him until he got out. I was just a child, and never been that far away from home before. I didn't know for sure if I was ready for that big of a step, so I broke things off. Danny hated me. He was so mad. He would send me letters telling me how I ruined his life, and how much he hated me. In my heart I knew he didn't hate me, and in my heart I knew I was doing the right thing. I had a lot of growing up to do before I could be his wife. It was a year later when he came back. I never stopped loving him, but I also knew that I had hurt him very badly, and I didn't deserve a second chance. But he gave it to me. For that I was ever so greatful. The more time we spent together the closer we became until he finally asked me to marry him. I didn't have a ring. Just a promise. We moved to New York because he was home sick. We moved in with his mom and dad unti we married. Shortly after I became pregnant. How wonderful it was to be pregnant with his child! I gained 65 pounds (mainly because of him) and he loved every second of it. Constantly he took pictures of my swelling belly. At night he would fall asleep with his hand on my stomach. He would drive for half an hour in a blizzard to get me the pizza I was craving. When I wanted a pecan pie, he made me one.
Seven months into my pregnancy I recieved a phone call early in the morning saying that my brother had been killed in a motorcycle accident. I was devastated. When our daughter was six months old Danny moved me back home so I could be with my family. He didn't have a job or anything. He knew how much I needed them, and he loved me so much that he just one day decided to go back. He got a job within the first two weeks, and within a month we moved into our house. Life couldn't have been any better. I had the man of my dreams. A beautiful baby girl, and we were already making plans for more.
One day Danny became ill. We didn't know what was wrong with him. First the doctors said it was his gall bladder, than they said it was his kidneys, but no medicine made him better. One morning he awoke and a mole on his neck was bleeding. I immediately made him a doctors appointment and he had it biopsied. Two days later I came home from work and there was a message on the answering machine from his doctor telling him he needed to talk to him ASAP. I knew it wasn't good, and I also knew that I couldn't be the one to make the call, so I went over my moms house. An hour later Danny showed up. I could tell by the look on his face that something was wrong. When I met him at the door he told me it was cancer. "Don't tell your mom" he said. How could I just sit there without saying anything about it? Tears streamed down my face for the next half hour, but I refused to say a word. Finally he told her, and we went home to talk about it. The next two months were like a roller coaster ride. It was bad. We didn't get it soon enough, and it had already spread throughout his internal organs. When we asked the doctors how much longer he had the news was devastating. "It could be three months, or a couple years. We could be nice and give you five or at the most ten years. It all depends on the outcome of the surgery." He wasn't even 27 yet. I was only 22. I went to everyone of his doctors appointments with him. I sat and held his hand while they took at 16 more moles from his body. The day of his surgery finally came. I sat in the waiting room for five hours waiting for them to get done. They took a huge three inch by three inch section of his neck out. They grafted skin from his shoulder to fill in the gap in his neck, and they grafted skin from his leg to cover the shoulder. But he told me they got it all. His word was all I needed. I never talked to the doctos about it.
We stayed with my parents while he recovered. Our house didn't have air, and it was too uncomfortable for him in the heat of summer. He turned 27 that week.
It was one week after his surgery, and he wasn't feeling very well, so he decided to go to bed early. Not a day in our marriage did we let one another go to bed without coming in to say I love you. So after I thought he was all settled in I went to our room to kiss him goodnight and tell him how much I loved him. I got to the door and saw him on his hands and knees. I almost ran to him thinking something was wrong, but before I did I heard him praying to God. It was that night I found out that they hadn't gotten all the cancer. Danny was asking God to please allow him to die. Not so he could end his own suffering, but so I wouldn't have to suffer through watching him slowly get sicker and sicker.
Since he was so new to his job they couldn't give him anymore time off. They knew he still needed time to get better, so they sent him to school in another county. Danny couldn't drive yet. He could barely lift his head, so I was with him the first two weeks. The third week into his schooling was my dads birthday, so I asked if I could stay home that week. He was better and thought that he could handle driving to and from school on his own, so I made plans to go back home for a few days. Before I left Danny asked me how he could go to Heaven when he died. I hadn't been to church since we met, and I wasn't comfortable answering that question, so instead I told him we would go to church the following weekend.
That week Danny called everyday begging me to please come back. My dads birthday was on a Wednesday, so Thursday afternoon I packed up the car and headed back out to be with Danny. That weekend we would come home, and I was going to take him to church. He was going to be saved. And I was happy.
He was very strange that night. Very emotional, and very needy. The baby cried almost all night. In between soothing her, I would have to sooth him. He just wanted me in his arms. He awoke around two in the morning and noticed that I wasn't with him. I wa trying to get the baby settled. He freaked out. We put the baby down, and I went back to him. We made love that night. A child was concieved. The next morning he woke himself and drove his own self to school. I packed the car and started getting ready for our trip back home. I was really excited. I couldn't wait to take him to church. It would be a little ackward going back to the church that kicked me out so long ago, but for Danny I was welling. I would do anything for Danny. When he came home for lunch he insisted that we call our parents. I didn't know why he was so persistant, but he was. We couldn't get either set on the line, and he was very upset about it. Almost to the point of tears.