Eternally Grateful

By D. L. Landers

Eternally Grateful is a powerful passion-enriched story about a family devoted young woman from the country with the drive to fill voids; she is filled with stories from a companion about a city of opportunity for new beginnings. With the world at her fingertips, Dee takes advantage of an opportunity of a lifetime and moves to the big city where she can write her own life. After her talents are quickly discovered, she has everything going her way..what she doesn't know is, she is about to embark on a journey filled with many adventures. She risks her life to save a stranger, but doesn't know how much this selfless act of kindness is going to change her life. It's an emotional roller coaster of passion, thrills, revenge, selfishness, love and hate, with twists and turns that will blow you away. Take a journey on a ride of mystery, murder, drama, romance and justice.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. L. Landers
• Release date: May 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301694570

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Eternally Grateful

By D. L. Landers

Copyright 2012 D. L. Landers

Smashwords Edition

Dedication:

I would like to dedicate this book to a lot of people for a lot of different reasons. I know that most writers don’t do it this way, but I have a lot of people to be thankful for in my life and I want them to know how much I do appreciate them. I would like them to be recognized for what they have done to and for me in my life. God has truly gifted me with many blessings.

First, a very special dedication to my loving husband. He has always been by my side through any dream I’ve ever had, even when they were unreachable, he has always given me a reason to keep on believing when I am on the edge of giving up. He gives me the support I need, and not just to support me, he has lifted me higher than I could have ever gone alone…and when I talked to him about writing, he told me he knew I could do it, I just had to have a little faith in myself. When he seen that I was serious about it, he made the time for me to make this dream come true. He brought me coffee late at night when I was determined to get another chapter done, but could hardly keep my eyes open. I love you my Darling, and thank you so much for loving me, and for having faith in me, even when I couldn’t seem to find any at all in myself. I thank God every day for finding a way to put us together and I am thankful to Him for you and your love, without it, my purpose in life would be lost, because you are the largest part of what and who I am. You have given me a reason to awaken every day since I met you.

To the most wonderful Mom and Dad in the world. You have been everything to me, and you still are. I am thankful to God that you are still in my life. I couldn’t begin to think of what life without you would be like, except to say that it would truly be a nightmare. Without you, I would not be whole. I don’t know what I would do without you both. You taught me the value of family, love and sacrifice. I love you Mommy and Daddy, with all of my heart. Thank you for everything you are. Mommy, you made a lot of sacrifices for me when I was growing up, and at the Same time, you were young and still growing up yourself…and that never stopped you from being the best mother in this world. The sacrifices you made in your life to keep me loved and safe will never be forgotten. I love you so much. And Daddy…thank you for always being there when only Daddy is what I wanted, and here I am at this age…and still in need of my Daddy when I’m afraid and when those storms come whistling through the mountains where I live, I know my Daddy will be calling me. It is such a great comfort for you to be on the other end of that phone, telling me everything is going to be all right.

To my wonderful children, well, they aren’t quite children anymore, but to me, they will always be my babies. They asked me about this book the whole time I was writing it, and were sincerely interested, and even when they weren’t, they did a good job at pretending they were. LOL They have their own individually special way of making me smile, and filling my heart with new love for them every day. I thank God for entrusting me with them, and I thank Him every day for keeping them healthy and safe. I love you all so very much, and I am thankful for all three of you. In your own ways, you have enriched my life like you could never imagine and I am so proud of you, and thankful to have you in my life I am so proud to be your Mom. I couldn’t imagine where my life would have gone, if anywhere, had I not met your Daddy and God gifted me with the three of you and your Daddy, because there is nothing in my life more important than my family.

I would also like to dedicate this book to the memory of the most wonderful grandparents in the world, two of the most loving people in this world. They were always able to see the good in everybody, something I’m sorry to say I will probably never be able to do. Something one person in this world knows all too well and will one day get what’s coming to them. For that, they can be certain. They were so much a part of my life growing up. I cannot think of a time when they weren’t with us during holidays, special summer activities, and raspberry picking on the old mining road,. We have always stuck together as a family and never allowed anything to separate us. I still find it difficult to try to get through a day without them. Mamaw and Papaw, life just isn’t the same without you in it. It still doesn’t seem real that you are no longer with us. I am so lost without you both. You always listened to me when everybody else thought what I had to say wasn’t important. I love and miss you both so much, and I know I will see you again one day.

To my baby brother, although he is definitely not a baby anymore, but even now, when he is sitting listening to a story or telling one, and he laughs, he always makes me smile. The sound of his laughter since the day he was born has always filled my heart with happiness and joy. I used to tell everybody when I was carrying him around that he belonged to me. He was always my baby; from the day he drew his first breath on this earth. And I think he knows that all too well. I love you Rog.

I would also like to dedicate this book to my true heroes of this world. First and foremost, coalminers, my grandfather had horrible complications before he passed away due to complications caused by working in the mines, and my father is a retired coalminer. I would like to thank them for the sacrifices they take each day to provide for their families, and the risks they take EVERY day to do it. Coalmines could cave-in, or explode at any given second and leave a roomful of widows. And unlike other heroes that risk their lives each day…there isn’t and never will be restitution given to the wives that have lost their husbands in these accidents.

To Faye, Mary, and Leah. Thank you all for being a part of my life. first…for ignoring the stupidity of a certain other person and looking to see if I was really hurt before writing me off. You found out there truly was something wrong with me, and you sent me to Dr. Edwards to have something done to help me. Thank you all for caring enough to find out what was truly wrong with me when I was in terrible pain and in desperate need of surgery and thank you again…for seeing me through to Dr. Davis that did the surgery that fixed some of the problems I have. Faye, you are not just a doctor to me; you are my friend and a part of my family. Mary, Leah, I think that goes without saying. You are my sisters; I trust you and you are more than a huge part of my life. I am honored to know such wonderful people and to have you so close in my life. I pray I have you in my life for a very long time.

To Dr. Davis for doing the surgery that stopped some of the pain I am going through, and to give me back some of the use in my left hand. You tried to tell me not to expect miracles, but all I could hope for was for some of the pain in my neck, head and arms to stop. You did the surgery and gave me back part of myself when I thought all of the productivity in my life was gone. My life was falling apart, I lived in pain every day of my life, I fell into a deep depression and stopped writing. My husband tried everything he could to make he laugh, and he was doing everything for me, and I hated that. I never want to be a burden on anybody. After the surgery, I went back to the book and finished it. That should say something. God bless you.

To Dr. Clark, I would like to say thank you, for listening to me, for treating me like a patient not a number, and for caring about me. There are very few doctors that actually care anymore, I sure am glad I found you. I hope I never lose you. You talk to me like my family talks to me, not like a doctor, and you also treat me like I know what I’m talking about, and you don’t have the I’m the doctor I’ll be the judge of that, kind of doctor, and I think that’s what I love most about you. Never change, cause I love ya just the way you are.

I would like to thank all of my friends, God knows, I could never begin to name them but they definitely know who they are…they have stuck by me, and pestered the living hell out of me wondering when I was going to finish this book so that they could read it. I am so thankful for their support and love through all of the times I wanted to just throw in the towel and give up. I am thankful to God for each and every one of you, and I thank Him every day for allowing you all into my life and for giving me the inspiration and hope it took to get past all of the negative in my life.

I am not a Christian, and I do not claim to be like a lot of people my Grandpa used to call matchbox Christians, they will use God when it suits their purpose and be all sweet and clean, and the rest of the time they are hurting people, talking about them, or just trying to make their lives miserable, that’s not a Christian, that’s called hypocrite, and I know a lot of those. I love God and am thankful to Him for the goodness in my life, and I do thank Him every day for giving me the strength and the will to keep going in my everyday life, through the rough and hard times. He sent me strength when I felt like I didn’t want to get up anymore, He gave me hope when I was running out of reasons, He sends many angels to watch over me in time of need and support. I have so much to be thankful for and I know that He is the reason. And let me also add that I doubt very seriously that He would like this book very much. LOL God forgive me for some of the things I put in here.

About The Author

By the dedication, I’m sure you see that I was not only raised by the best parents in the world, I also had two of the best grandparents that God ever put upon this earth. I thank Him for keeping them here long enough to teach me the good they taught me, and were in my kids’ lives long enough for them to remember the good he and she stood for. Even when I don’t have it to give, I will still find a way to help others. I sure hope that some day God finds a way to help us too, because we have sure had a lot of bad things happening to us this past few years, almost to the point to where I wasn’t sure what was going to happen to us.

The love we have in our family is very strong. We take care of and stand strong beside each other, and in this day and time, it is hard to find families that are like us. I am proud, honest, sassy, and a bit headstrong because that’s the clay God made me with, but I am glad to say that’s the way my Mommy loves me, just the way I am. I am a very proud coalminer’s daughter and coalminer’s granddaughter. I grew up in a little coal town in West Virginia that is unknown to just about anybody unless you lived there, or in the surrounding area. The place was small and unimportant to a lot of people, but to me, it was the best place in the world to begin my life. Everything was much more simple back then, even though I considered it boring; I was young and like most young people, I wanted to do a lot more than we were able to do where we lived. But this little town was very peaceful and safe. I realize now that sometimes boring isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Too bad I didn’t realize it until after I moved away and life got too hard to sometimes live with.

The community took care of each other, and all adults watched over everybody else’s kids. And when the kids grew up to be adults, the roles reversed, or at least for some of us. I tried to help whomever I could when they were in need and weren’t strong enough to do for themselves and I am proud that I was taught this by the best family in the world. My parents taught me values that seem to be unheard of today. We always believed that family comes first, and to always respect your elders, too bad most of the world doesn’t believe like that anymore. They have taken God out of schools, and now the damn liberal bastards that don’t believe in God are trying to take him out of our lives, but I dare any of them to try to take Him out of mine.

My greatest heroes are first, my parents and grandparents; they worked very hard to teach me right from wrong, and to be kind to others. Next coalminers. They are the true heroes. They truly risk their lives every day to work under hundreds of tons of rock and coal to help others.

My precious husband; he has been through so many struggles in his life. He had a very hard time in his last life before he met me, and then when we got together, it got somewhat worse, because something was taken away from him that he tried to love, but he was lied on and treated like shit and I am glad to say that my parents taught me better than that. He always tells me that he is so glad that I chose him to spend the rest of my life with because anyone else would have abandoned him had they been with him when he went through the things he did in the first part of our marriage and what the ex of his life put him through. I’ve been lied on, (still am) I’ve been talked about like a dog, (I found out as of late I still am) but the good thing about all of that is that words can’t get to me anymore. He was well worth any and every problem we ever had to over-come and every one we WILL, and he still is. He took care of me and our children and he still does the very best he can to make sure we have what we need in life. And just to be honest…he definitely needs a huge pat on the back for dealing with me. LOL I say that because sometimes I can truly be a pain in the butt. I have OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and trust me; living with someone that has it is no stroll through the park. I hold tight to him because he is my rock. I worry so much about my children, because of the struggles they go through in this day and time are nothing compared to what we were exposed to in my young life. I am so proud of them.

My other heroes are our soldiers that fight and die for the freedoms we take advantage of every day. And I appreciate their other half for dealing with the fact that they have to be gone so long when they are sent to other parts of the world where they can ‘t be with their families. That is a huge sacrifice that would be hard for even the strongest of men. A life spent apart so much has got to be one of the hardest things to do, and for that, they deserve our true support and appreciation.

God forgive me for saying this, but I used to say that I felt the same way about policemen that put their lives on the line for us to live safe in our neighborhoods, but after seeing the things I have seen in the past few years of my life, I’m not so sure I can really say that I appreciate them anymore. I have had five encounters with police officers in the last year and four of them have been very bad. I am a good person and I would do anything for anybody, but if you are one of those cops that I speak of, the ones that are wonderful people until you strap on that badge, then you turn into a total asshole that thinks they can change the law to suit them because they ARE a cop…pardon me…but screw you. You are a waste of life. I am very sorry to say that the average of bad cops is about 90%. I know that cops have a lot to deal with too, but everyone is different, not everyone smokes crack and talks trash, some of us appreciate OR used to appreciate police officers and the sacrifices they make every day…and they should treat everyone that way unless they are treated badly by someone. You don’t just walk up to someone, flash the badge and start acting like a better than thou asshole. Be the same person without a badge that you are when you aren’t wearing one. Because you need to remember one thing…sooner or later that badge comes off, and that’s when you’re going to feel the repercussion of being an asshole with a badge. My respect is for true police officers that stand for truth and justice and assure safety on our streets and in our homes. Last, but certainly not least…my true hero…The Almighty God above for all that He does for me in my life and for others.

I cling tightly to my dreams and pray that they all come true before my life on this earth is finished. If this book makes it to the somewhere, and I pray it does, it will make my dreams come true. They aren’t big and not VERY expensive, but I just want to do something very important with my life before it ends.

I have another series of books started, so get ready for my next one!!!

My third dream is to go on a cruise and then spend about a month in Australia, but my husband is afraid if we go, I may never want to come back. So we are putting that one off until I can make the next dream come true, and that is to own my own farm and to make it self-sufficient. Last, but certainly not least…I want to own my own Harley and bike my way to benefits and book-signings. If I can do that, then I have made all of my dreams come true.

I don’t have a lot to say about myself, I love the simple things in life, but most of all, I truly love my family. I love doing things with them, and they are my purpose…my reason to live every day. Since writing this book, I feel the need to add this…I have been given the most beautiful grandson in the world and I am very lucky and gifted to have this beautiful little person in my life. He told me just the other day something I will never forget, he said, ‘Nanna, you are my best fwiend, I hadn’t smiled for a long while because at that time I was going through a very rough time, but this definitely made my heart light up with happiness. He has truly changed my life. Everyone says that your children are your everything, but what they say is very true, Your children are your rainbows in life…but your grandchildren are the pot of gold," I can honestly say that is very true. Rocky is the nickname I gave him two minutes after he was born because he balled up those little fists, and it looked like he was shadow punching, and it was SO adorable. I love you Rocky!! He definitely loves his Nanna and Bopaw. My family is the air that I breathe; everything that I am, they are the reason for it.

I enjoy the simple things that life has to offer; sitting in the back yard and listening to the birds sing, sitting by the window at night and listening to the frogs and crickets, and I love the afternoons when I sit in the swing, writing and listening to God’s beautiful gifts to us. My favorite thing to do is to go camping, because sometimes you just need to get away from the world and sit by a nice little campfire and throw the rest of the world away for a little while.

I love the country and I would never think of life anywhere else. I am very easily pleased, but at the same time I am hardheaded, so that makes a hell of a combination for disaster. If I get my mind set on something, I don’t stop until I accomplish it. My family is my life, I love them with all of my heart, want everyone to be happy, I would do anything within my power to make that happen for them, and they know it. My Mom always told me that when it came right down to it and you need someone to be there for you…that you will have many friends in your life that will come and go but family will be the only ones standing behind you when you really need someone to be there. I found out, as usual, she is always right.

I have a lot of hobbies, from arts and crafts to collecting porcelain dolls. I am purely a summer person; I should have been born a bear, because in the cold weather months, I go into hibernation. I spend most of my winters all snuggled up in my fuzzy warm blankets, crocheting or writing. I love the sounds of nature and spend most of the winter waiting for sounds of spring; the birds, crickets and the frogs to come back.

A special note to my readers, I hope to hear from you when you finish my book. I would like you to tell me what you think of it; your opinion means a lot to me. Please feel free to write anytime you like and I will do my best to respond. And please visit my website often to find out when my new book comes out. Write me at [e-mail]

Chapter One:

Delia was known throughout most of her elementary school years as a jellyfish, or a pushover. She was bullied and made fun of by most of the popular kids. She always tried to be good to everyone, even the ones that treated her badly, because she hoped that one day they would realize how ignorant they were acting and stop what they were doing before she changed her way of thinking and started acting like them by fighting back. She went to school to learn, not to fight or have people picking fights with her.

She was always told by her father, "You are not to start anything, but you don’t take anything off of anyone either. If you get suspended for defending yourself, I will be glad to go to the school and defend you. But idiots that were just full of moronic verbal vomit, she just laughed at and walked away. She wouldn’t start anything, but she wouldn’t crouch and cover her head if the time came and she had to get physical. She kept everything that happened to her inside, she wouldn’t tell her family because she didn’t want them worrying about her.

Her parents and grandparents taught her to try her best to walk away and ignore anyone that talked down to her; and she tried to remember that in hopes of being a good person. They always believed that you are supposed to turn the other cheek.

Her grandmother always said, "Kids do what they see, and if their parents are mouthy, selfish and self-centered people, in most cases, their children learn it from them and turn out just like them. Children are not taught values, morals, sacrifice, giving, charity, or gratitude anymore. They are only worried about themselves, and it is very sad to watch the world turn into such a selfish place. Dee always helped the elderly, no matter what they needed done, but she never seen anyone else her age in the neighborhood doing anything without being paid to do so and it’s hard enough for the elderly to pay for their medications and pay their bills on what little bit the government gives them to survive on, which is really sad considering the money they get is money they earned when they were working, and most never even get a fraction of their money back before they get sick and pass away.

Things have changed so much over the years. Family used to mean so much to people back when Dee was a little girl. Very few people just threw their children off on anybody that would watch them, but you see it everywhere now. The kids end up becoming irresponsible troublemakers if there is nobody there to guide them in the right direction and teach them right from wrong. There were a lot of those kids in the school that Dee attended. They would make fun of Dee for being told by her parents when she was and wasn’t allowed to go certain places if they felt it was unsafe for her.

Some had parents that stayed drunk most of the time, the kids either learned to cook for themselves, or their three meals a day consisted of microwave dinners or cereal. If the parents were some of the worst and cherished drugs and alcohol more than watching their kids grow up to be something important in life, someone they could be proud of. They don’t take care of their kids and most of the time they don’t even buy food for them and if they don’t, they either go hungry or eat at a friend’s house. A lot of her friends had great parents, like hers. They all took care of each other, and watched over their friends’ kids to keep them safe, took them to ballgames and such, just as her parents did. They also had fun with outdoor activities together.

Kids these days are handed a computer as a babysitter, because parents are too irresponsible these days to bother with them. They are either playing computer games, or in chat rooms wreaking havoc. Most parents don’t take the time to take their children fishing and camping anymore. They don’t teach them the things Dee was taught when she was growing up. The few friends she had at school were the ones that knew these things because they were raised by the right parents. Parents that cared what their children did, and grounded them when they did bad, and busted their hiney when they did bad things. Time out??? What the hell is that? Punishment? Sending a kid to their room where the computers, televisions, and game systems are? Yeah that’s reeeeal punishment.

They can go to a chat room, even ones that were put online by good people to try to give help and support to people in need of guidance, and some of these visitors are children seeking help, and then there are some that are just lonely and need someone to talk to, someone to tell their problems to, but even those type of chat rooms aren’t monitored and they either end up full of pedophiles and troublemaking freaks that are supposed to be adults, or they take kids in the wrong direction, and they end up creating monsters and mongrels with an IQ less than their shoe size, starting fights bullying, doing drugs, drinking, and much worse.

So many children have no idea what back yard barbeques and yard activities are because parents nowadays don’t bother taking the time to show them, or spend time with their kids and teach them what was taught to kids Dee’s age when she was a young girl. Manners and respect are damn near extinct and the scariest part is that this is where our next politicians are coming from, as if they aren’t bad enough already.

Her grandmother always talked about how children Dee’s age were turning out like thugs, and how it hurt her to see good kids turn into such monsters due to lack of proper discipline and guidance in their lives. There was an incident once while Dee and her grandmother were grocery shopping together, her grandmother seen a kid in the store screaming and cursing her mother, and rather than discipline the kid she started crying. Dee’s grandmother told the little girl that she only had one mother, and one day when she was gone, she would remember every ugly word she ever said to her, and that she wished she had her mother back for just one hour so she could tell her how much she loved her and was sorry for every horrible thing she had ever said to her. The little bitch walked up to Dee’s grandmother and said, Old lady, who the fuck asked you anything, you need to mind your own fuckin’ business. Dee seen the look on her grandmother’s face and she got so angry she walked up to the girl and said, That’s my grandmother you just disrespected, your mother might allow you to talk to her that way, but you won’t talk to mine like that.

She looked at Dee with a smile on her face and said, Well maybe if your Granny hadn’t stuck her nose where it didn’t belong she wouldn’t have been disrespected, she needs to mind her own damn business, just like you do.

Oh really? Dee asked. She was trying to give you some very good advice, and you disrespected her without reason, you do it again and it will take a surgeon to get my foot out of your ass, Dee said as her anger began to escalate.

Aw boo hoo, should I cry now? I am just over-ridden with guilt, now fuck OFF bitch!

Then Dee did something she had never done before, without giving it a second thought, she balled up her fist and busted the girl right in the mouth. Aw boo hoo, NOW you can cry, you little disrespectful bitch! Dee said as she watched the girl grab her mouth and look over at her mother, she was expecting her to say something to Dee for what she did. Her mother did not say a word, she just stood there staring at her daughter wondering how you could love someone so much and hate what they do so much at the same time, and embarrassed at the way she was talking to Dee and her grandmother.

Mom, she busted my mouth, I’m bleeding! She yelled.

If a total stranger walked up to me and said the things you said to and about my grandmother, you would be spitting out teeth, I can’t blame the girl for protecting her grandmother, it’s called respect, something I tried to teach you, but you think cussing out adults is cool. So if you’re going to be cool, you better learn how to fight, because very few people are going to put up with that filthy mouth, her mother said to her showing absolutely no facial expression at all.

Dee looked at her as she was walking away and said, My ‘GRANNY’ has enough respect that she would never say anything back to you for disrespecting her like you just did, but I hope you remember this when you disrespect someone else, you may get more than a busted mouth.

The girl just looked at Dee with a look that said go straight to hell and kept walking toward the door. Dee let everybody run over her, but she would never let anybody disrespect her family, and after what she said to her grandmother, there was no way she would dare let that pass. They were the air that she breathed. And Dee figured the next time she said something nasty to someone, maybe she would remember that busted mouth she got and put a sock in it.

Dee apologized to the girl’s mother for what she did, but she told her it was hard to watch young people disrespect their elders, and after she said what she did to her Grandma, she just lost it, I just couldn’t let her disrespect my grandmother and just walk away thinking it was okay to talk like that…at least to everybody, because she is going to disrespect the wrong one sometime, and she’s not just going to walk away with a busted mouth.

The mother just looked at Dee very calmly and said, Maybe if I had busted her ass in the past instead of worrying about hurting her feelings, maybe I wouldn’t be listening to what I do now, and I wouldn’t have the disrespectful hellion I have now, and she wouldn’t be doing me the way she does. She doesn’t do this to her father because she knows that he will bust her ass. Had I did that instead of that time out shit a time or two, who knows?"

It’s not too late, you still have a few years and quite a few punishments left before she turns eighteen. Mom always took the thing that meant the most to me away if I did something bad, and back then, it was either my stereo or my television. Give it a try, who knows, maybe you’ll move mountains.

"I don’t know about that little lady, but I’m willing to give it a try. You may have taught more than one person a lesson today," she winked and smiled. As she walked away from Dee, she got the idea that she wasn’t going to take any more disrespect from that little filthy mouth either.

Dee took a lot of punishment in school and a lot of disrespect. In her case, the troublemaker and bully was mostly the principal’s son, so there was no fixing that. Dee’s parents went to the school and the principal acted as though Dee was exaggerating the situation even though he wasn’t even on the playground during the time of the incident. Even after her mother showed the bruises she was given by the principal’s son, from being kicked and hit with a bat on the playground, the principal once again acted like it was no big deal and Dee’s mom is like Dee, she can only take so much and she loses her temper. When the principal told Dee’s mother that she was going to have to start toughening up and stop being such a whiner, her mother’s face turned red as blood. She turned to the principal and said, "If it was your daughter with these bruises on her legs like my daughter has, and you found out that it was some pussy boy like your son, that was beating on girls like a little fairy instead of fighting with boys, how would you handle it? He just stood there looking at her with a dirty look on his face.

Dee’s mother said, This is how our family handles it, we are nice the first time, and we report it, and if the parent is as big of a pussy as their son, we tell our kids this…she turned to Dee and said, Dee, I reported what happened to you and nothing was done about it, so if that little son of a bitch does this shit to you again, you pick up a rock, baseball bat, a big stick, or any damn thing you can get your hands on and bust his damn brains out, then call 911 and tell them that you were defending yourself against a bully and you bashed a boy’s skull. And when they get here, you tell them that your mother made an effort to talk to the principal and he told your mother that you were nothing but a whiner. Once the cops see the bruises on you, it will be open and shut." She picked up her coat and walked out of the office.

On her way out she said, He’s as big of a pussy as his own son is. I hate a damn man that doesn’t have the balls to control his own kid, how the hell did they give him the job of taking care of a whole school? Dee could see that her mother was VERY angry. She laughed as she left the principal’s office, turned, looked at him, laughed again and walked out.

About two minutes after Dee got back to class, the intercom came on and the boy that had been hurting Dee was called to the office. She knew then that Daddy was telling his son to leave her alone. But after that, she always carried a baseball bat around in her hand on the playground. She let him know she wasn’t going to take any shit off of him or his friends anymore. If anybody laid a hand on her, she was going for a home run.

One day he seen that Dee wasn’t carrying the bat, and he decided to test the waters. The little monster walked up to her and hit her so hard in the stomach that she hit the ground screaming. The teacher in charge of watching the playground, Mrs. Thomas seen what he did to her, and yelled out to him, Marcus!!" He ignored the teacher, waited until Dee got up, and he hit her across her eye and nose. Her nose immediately began to pour blood; it was all over her neck and shirt before the teacher could get to her. Everyone on the playground just stopped and was watching. Two boys ran over in his direction, slammed into him and knocked him off of Dee, he had his fist balled up and was going to hit her again.

She stood up and wiped the blood away from her mouth, looked around for something to hit him with and found a jump rope, she picked it up, rolled it up on her hands, and started beating him like a dog. Mrs. Thomas figured she deserved her revenge, so she stood there and let Dee do what she wanted until she stopped.

"Stop! Stop!! Marcus cried, I won’t do anything to you anymore, please stop. When he stood up, the teacher grabbed his arm, and jerked him across the playground and took him to the office. A few minutes later Dee was called to the nurse’s station. She didn’t go. She just walked over to the steps and sat down. Everyone crowded around her and was putting their hand on her back. She began to cry from embarrassment, she could feel her face swelling right in front of everybody, and she knew she must look horrible after what he did to her. That was the first time she had ever let anyone see her cry.

Mrs. Thomas ran to the nurse’s station and got some wet towels and an ice pack to clean her up. She came back, and sat with her and held her hand.

The boy had knots from his neck all the way to his ankles. Mr. Ross, the principal called her to the office, the teacher said, "Don’t worry about it Baby, you sit right there, I will take care of this one. The teacher went to the office and told the Mr. Ross that if he didn’t do anything about what Marcus had done to Dee, she was going over his head to the Board of Education because she was tired of watching his son beat up young ladies on the playground and constantly get by with it.

He looked at his son and said, If you put another hand on Miss Williams, I will personally paddle you myself. Mrs. Thomas told him, I’m sorry, but that is by FAR…NOT good enough this time. Both of her eyes are black and I think her nose is broken.

Did you do that to her son? He refused to answer. Mr. Ross yelled, I will not repeat myself!!

So what if I did? Mr. Ross became so angry that he picked up the paddle and paddled him until he couldn’t sit down.

Now what are you going to do about Delia? She needs medical attention and she did not go to the nurse’s station, she sitting on the steps in front of the school bawling her eyes out, and this is definitely going somewhere, I will be surprised if her parents don’t go to the Board themselves. I would be even more surprised if one of them doesn’t come down here and whoop your ass, because rumor has it that the whole top floor heard Mrs. Williams talking to you behind closed doors the last time she was here. You had better do something, because you do NOT want Mr. Williams down here tomorrow, or you may look like Delia, because I know the family and he is not one that takes kindly to having his daughter beaten down by a male too chicken shit to pick fights with boys, he only beats on girls.

The principal called an ambulance and had Dee taken to the hospital, and then called Dee’s mother to tell her what happened. Dee’s mother was furious, I WARNED you that this was going to happen if you kept letting him bully my daughter. This is NOT going to end here. I am going to talk to someone about having you being removed as principal; you aren’t capable of taking care of a kennel, much less a school.

That evening, Mrs. Thomas called Mrs. Williams to fill her in on all of the details. Mr. Ross suspended his son for a week with zeros in all of his classes.

Well he will also have to answer to the Board, because my husband is going there tomorrow to find out what can be done with him and also with his scumbag Daddy. I warned that bastard not even a week ago that this was going to happen, and he ignored me and called my daughter a whiner.

Dee’s parents reported the principal to the Board, but all they did was wrote him up and reprimanded him, and warned him that if he is told again that someone is being bullied and he ignores it, he will be looking for another job. But after that, Marcus never touched Dee again. After this incident, Dee withdrew even more than she already was from people, and either stayed where it was quiet, and worked on her assignments in the cafeteria when the other kids were on the playground. When she didn’t have any schoolwork, she would go to the library and find a book to read, and plant herself into that so that she didn’t have to associate with the people at school. What happened with Marcus and the embarrassment of it all caused Dee to stop making friends or talking to anyone.

She never went outside with the other kids; she just studied and worked hard so that she could get away from that place as soon as she could. The grades she was making were far beyond the other students she was in school with that Mrs. Thomas requested that she be put in Junior High. She saw how far that Dee had withdrawn from people and was worried about her mental state after what happened to her. She figured if she got her away from that school she would start associating with people again. They took her out of seventh grade and put her in ninth. This got her away from the bullies, and all of the people that laughed at her after the incident.

She loved Junior High. They had two gyms, an old one that kids that packed their lunches would go to and eat, and they had an old jukebox in it. Kids would bring records to play on it while they had their lunch. She met three people that she became very close to and started talking again, no more bullies, no more childishness, and no more laughing at people. She went outside and they had a very large area where Dee could go for long walks at lunch and during study hall, and after she would go on these little walks, it relieved a lot of her stress and helped her with her depression, so much that even her mother noticed a difference in her within a few weeks of being placed there. She studied hard, made good grades, and made her family proud.

Dee was very smart at an early age. She would beg her parents to read to her every night before she went to bed because she thought it was the most beautiful gift in the world to be able to look at a bunch of letters on a page and put them together to make beautiful stories. She thought it was wonderful to get pencils or pens and draw pictures for her family. When she was a little girl, she thought she was an artist. She would draw everybody pictures as Christmas presents. And everyone would always make a big deal about it, and thank her for them and talk about how pretty they were.

Dee’s mother would always say that Dee was destined to do something with drawing. She thought maybe someday she would become an artist. She hoped that she never stopped wanting to learn, and she got what she wanted. Her teachers were constantly bragging on her, talking about how fast she finished her assignments, and how far ahead of everyone else she was, she would finish one assignment and go straight to the next without anyone telling her to. She usually finished a book in literature days before everyone else.

Dee’s Literature teacher from the eleventh grade told her that with her imagination and the way she wrote her papers for class, that she could be a damn good writer if she put her mind to it. When she was little, she wanted so bad to learn to read. She bugged her mother to death until she taught her the alphabet by heart. She thought she was the smartest person in the world after that. Then her mother taught her to read her little books and some of the very short books, she memorized, and pretended she was reading them to her Mom and Dad.

She learned most of the stories by heart, because her mother read them to her so much. She would get such a laugh when she would start missing Dee’s Dad and she would come upstairs to find her father in Dee’s bed with a help me look on his face. She would make him hold her teddy bear like she did when she was being read to, and she would read her stories to him. Sometimes she would make up stories when the books had words in it she couldn’t read. Her father felt as though the kindergarten kid was holding him hostage. He would lie down in her bed, she would read to him and sometimes he was so tired from work that he would fall asleep. Dee would come down stairs and say, Daddy is asleep Mommy, he loved my stories, her mother just laughed because she didn’t have the heart to tell her that her father fell asleep because he was either bored to death or just plain tired from work.

As she got older, she loved being dependable. Her mother would brag on all of the things she did while she was at work. They knew they could depend on her to do the things they weren’t able to do if they had to work and were too tired when they got home. She usually had dinner on the table and the house was cleaned all but the dishes, and she had the coal carried in and sitting on the porch for her father so that he didn’t have to do it. She always worried about his back. She never had to be reminded that the dishes needed to be washed, or her room needed to be cleaned.

When she became a cheerleader and was playing basketball, she had practice for one or the other after school, but that never kept her from her chores. Sometimes she would come home late, and sometimes very late, but she would still do them if they hadn’t already been done. If her mother hadn’t cooked, she did her best, but her first cooking experiences were nothing to brag about. Her father and mother appreciated the gesture, and would eat at least part of what she fixed anyway because they knew she did her best.

She didn’t mind doing the chores, after all of the sacrifices they have made for her, it’s the least she could do is to make their lives a little easier. She figured they did enough at work every day; they didn’t need to come home and work too. She felt it was her duty to do what they needed done at home. If she had the time, she would go to her elderly neighbors’ houses and help them to carry in their coal if they had nobody to do it. There were quite a few kids Dee’s age in her neighborhood, and it bothered her that most didn’t help their neighbors more than they did, because you could bet they were always there knocking on their doors when they needed their money when they were selling items for school trips. They would always buy candy from her, she made hot dogs, hamburgers, and her mother helped her make fried pies to raise money. Why should they suffer financially so that she could have a little more entertainment in her life, especially since the most fun she usually has is with them, and they could barely afford to pay their bills.

Dee wasn’t your typical teen. She didn’t stay on the phone with her friends all of the time, she spent a lot of time in her room reading. She liked being by herself and she liked quiet areas so she could concentrate on her writing.

People would tell Dee she was a lovely young lady, but she never thought of herself that way, she didn’t like the way she looked at all. She found it very easy to talk to the elderly in the community and less easy to talk to people her own age. She liked hearing about how to make butter, cheese, buttermilk, and how to make underground storage areas for canned food, fruits and vegetables; she loved to learn what the elderly did to keep their food from spoiling. They told her how to raise chickens and other farm animals, because some day she thought she might like to be a farmer. She found the elderly to be very resourceful and she loved the stories they told of when they were younger. They taught her so much that she could do when she grew up. She considered people her own age boring for the most part.

While the other girls in her class were spending most of their time primping in front of a mirror, combing their hair, and redoing their makeup, she was studying and trying to keep her grades up in hopes of getting scholarships to help her get to college and make her parents proud.

During lunch and breaks, she had her nose buried in the books, making sure she was prepared for tests and pop quizzes.

In the earlier years of her life, she was a tomboy and played football, basketball and baseball and even wrestled with the young men in her neighborhood and she loved going to exercise class with her mother and grandmother because it was something the ladies did together, and they always went to her favorite diner to eat when they were finished, and that was her idea of fun. She didn't have much of a social life outside her family and close friends, and didn't do a lot of dating because the guys that she spent time with were just friends, and she thought it would be awkward if she dated any of them.

The guys that her friends considered fun were the ones that drank, went to parties, smoked pot, and slipped out behind the bleachers at ballgames, or hit the backseats of cars for sex and most of the guys were only having sex with them to get a notch in their belt, and the girls ended up humiliated and talked about.

The few girlfriends she did hang with at times liked to go out with the potheads and troublemakers, and that was not in any way appealing to Dee. She always knew that her knight in shining armor would come galloping up on a big white horse someday, but until then, she was going to take her time and enjoy and life with her family and cherish doing things that she liked to do.

She felt that her freshman year was the worst year of high school because she was gone after school a few days a week seeing a dentist or orthodontist and ended up with braces and she wore them throughout her high school years, and was very embarrassed. She didn’t like the way she looked so adding braces to the mix was just one more flaw to add to the collection of things she hated about herself and that made it even more impossible for her to think of herself as a nice looking girl. Even though her friends told her that she was pretty, she just brushed it off and thought they were just saying those things to be nice to her.

Some of the kids she went to school with made fun of her and when she was carrying on a conversation she could see them staring at her mouth as her lips kept getting caught in the braces. This caused her to withdraw even more from any type of sports or relationships throughout high school. She didn’t have many friends, but the ones she had were true and she knew she could depend on them in time of need. The one and only that she could be herself with was Joy. She met her again when they moved her to Junior High. Joy seen how scared she was being alone in a new school and took her under her wing and they became very close. They didn’t realize that they had known each other a very long time ago when they were both young kids, and they were best friends then too. She went to spend the night with Joy one night and her mother recognized her. Dee remembered having a friend named Joy, but neither she nor Joy connected it until her mother brought it up. Joy hated the color of her hair, so at an early age she began dying it, which is probably why Dee didn’t recognize her. This brought them even closer, finding out that they were best friends when they were little. She didn’t talk much in school, but she did talk to Joy on the phone sometimes, and they would meet in the cafeteria during study hall and spend time together studying. They had the same goal in school, to do the best they could. Joy would always say, We’re stuck here from eight in the morning until three-thirty in the evening, might as well do something with the time and make something of ourselves.

She had three very close friends throughout High School and even though they didn’t spend much time together due to different schedules, they still found time for each other through weekend events, like going swimming at the lake nearby and going camping. She loved the outdoors.

Most of her friends thought their parents were boring, but Dee thought hers were as cool as any of her friends. They didn’t act their age, they rode motorcycles, spent time in the woods riding four wheelers and go-carts, they loved going to the lake, going out on the pontoon and jumping out and swimming in the coves. She loved spending time with them because she knew they wouldn’t be in her life forever, and if she lost them, she knew that she had spent every chance she could showing them how much she loved them. They did arts and crafts together, had barbeques, and did a lot of camping and that seemed to be enough to keep her happy, so she never had the time or the need to work on trusting people and building very many friendships.

Dee’s clothes were never the ones you pull off of the high priced racks in the well known department stores; she always picked red and blue tag items from the clearance section of the discount department store, down town.

She didn’t believe in throwing money away, she felt that paying outrageous prices for a piece of material was a waste, and she always felt that clothing stores took advantage of idiots that had more money than brains. She didn’t want the high dollar clothing everyone else wore because none of those things seemed important to her, even though most of the kids from the high society class thought if you didn’t wear what everyone else did or become a label whore, you weren‘t cool. She had her own idea of what being cool was, and it definitely wasn’t to be a mirror image of everyone else. Most of her classmates felt they had to clone each other to fit in. She always felt that as long as she was dressed, warm, had shoes