if given time...

The first nine months after my separation I rented a room from a lady. There was another girl also renting a room from this lady. She was a young eighteen years old, I will call her Tina. We became very close friends.

Tina was very naive about many things and in her family there was a lot of abuse. Her mother had some mental problems also. At one point her mother wouldn't go into her own house because the house told her not to. She slept out on a rock out in front of her house for a few weeks during the fall months, but that's another story.

Tina felt comfortable asking me anything... About my marriage,my kids,being with a men, many different things. I wanted to know why she was asking me so many questions. She said that she would never be able to do any of these things and just wanted to know what it was like...I told her that one day she will know. She insisted that with her family back ground that she would be just like her parents and pass on the chaos. I tried to explain that she could brake the chain.

She had locked herself up emotionally and was unable to cry...She was a cutter to relieve emotion, but I had learned that if I had a pillow fight with her it always seamed to help with some of her release. That night was on of the hardest working pillow fights that we ever had.

The next morning I had to go to work and was up at 3:30 am. As I walked into the bathroom and turned on the light there were hundreds of post its with "NO" on them all over the room. I think she was trying to tell me something. She was up to see my response and she took a picture of me in there with her "NO's". I held her as I cried and kept telling her,"I'm sorry honey but your wrong, you will find love". For the next few days she slept on my floor in my room. She found this useful in helping her not to cut.

This never came up again and a year later I watched her and this young man get to know each other. It was very slow...Just friends and then it was little by little growing into something wonderful. This continued for over a year and then one day...He asked her to marry him. She didn't miss a beat in saying "YES".

When I heard the news I went to her at work and congratulated her and told her how happy I was for her. No I never told her,"I told you so". When I went out to my car there was a card taped to my window and a picture with a post it...