I Chose Death ...

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

Acknowledgments.............................................vPrologue....................................................ixChapter 1 The Beginning.....................................1Chapter 2 Gary, Indiana.....................................5Chapter 3 Hobart Township Dreams............................7Chapter 4 The Terrible Third................................9Chapter 5 Horsing Around in Tennessee.......................11Chapter 6 New Town New School...............................13Chapter 7 Miracle in Hobart, Indiana........................17Chapter 8 Finally Divorced..................................21Chapter 9 Sad Sunday........................................23Chapter 10 Finding a Lifelong Purpose.......................27Chapter 11 Government Housing...............................29Chapter 12 College in Alabama...............................33Chapter 13 Summer of Decisions..............................37Chapter 14 Back to My Roots.................................39Chapter 15 Becoming a Funeral Director......................41Chapter 16 Life in Nashville, Tennessee.....................43Chapter 17 King of the World................................47Chapter 18 Danger in Dallas, Texas..........................51Chapter 19 Rocky Journey....................................55Chapter 20 Turned Upside Down...............................59Chapter 21 The Reality of Jail..............................65Chapter 22 Court Date.......................................67Chapter 23 Casket Store.....................................69Chapter 24 Finding the Passion..............................71Chapter 25 Third Time Around................................73Chapter 26 Going out on my own..............................77Chapter 27 Men of Mortuaries................................83Epilogue....................................................85

Chapter One

I was born in Dyersburg, Tennessee, in 1961, which was a rural, blue-collar, farming town near the Mississippi river. My mother and father's families all worked very hard. Most of them were either farmers or factory workers. As a young girl, my mother picked cotton to buy her own clothes for school.

My parents met and grew up on the same gravel road in a community called Willisville, which was also my mother's maiden name. The people in that community were very kind, and gave much of themselves and their time. They were always willing to help anyone in need, and had a strong sense of love for each other. When my mother and father met they literally lived a stone's throw from each other. My mother grew up thinking marriage was the next step after graduating from high school. However, my dad dropped out of high school and joined the Navy at the age of eighteen. He and my mother married before he left for the service, and I was born while he was in Guam.

While my father was away, my mother and I lived with my grandparents in Willisville. I was the apple of my grandparents' eye. My grandfather was a farmer and involved in local politics. He also had a little grocery store that served as a local hangout for the farmers in the community. They would all sit around playing dominoes, eating sliced bologna sandwiches, and talking about how if they were in charge of the country things would be better.

My father met me, his son, when I turned four months. I was scared of him, my mother told me, because I viewed him as a stranger. That disconnect would continue throughout my life. I really don't think my dad knew what to do with a child. My dad's parents both died before he was five years old, and he never knew them. His oldest sister raised him and he had a difficult childhood.

My mom worked in a garment factory for minimum wage and was very much a god-fearing woman. Going to church was a part of my life and always seemed normal to me. Hell, fire, and brimstone I learned in church from birth.

When my father returned from the service we lived with my grandparents. After my father got a job in a local factory, we rented a small house in the city of Dyersburg. My mother tells a story that is still amazing to me. When I was two years old we lived in a house on Merriman Street. My mother kept a chair next to the crib in case I needed to crawl out in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. One morning, I got out of my crib. After using the restroom, I decided it would be a good idea to walk three blocks to my uncle's house. This trip across a busy street was dangerous even for an adult, but off I went. Of course, when my mother woke up to find me gone, she was frantic and had everyone in the neighborhood looking for me. Then, she said, all of a sudden here I come walking down the street back home. My uncle was not home and I had tried knocking on the front and back door to no avail. So not only did I cross that busy street once, but twice. When I tell this story and when I truly think about the magnitude of that trip, this is when I truly get a sense that God had a greater purpose for me. We lived in that house until we had a complete change of scenery and moved to Gary, Indiana.

Chapter Two

When I was four years old we moved to Gary, Indiana. My father was trying to make a better life for us. Believe me, this was a whole different world. I believe at age four you start to remember events in your life, and I certainly remember that move. Leaving Tennessee was especially hard on my mother. Her parents did not want us to move and I was very close to my grandmother and grandfather, especially my grandfather. So it was a tearful departure. My father started working at United States Steel, and made much more money that he would have ever made in Dyersburg. The culture shock had to impact my parents.

My most precise memory of the first few weeks in Gary is about a little boy who lived upstairs from us. He stole one of my trucks after we played together one afternoon, and never returned it. As a child, I did not understand how someone could do that. Maybe that event made me a very untrusting person. I am not sure if that day changed my mindset toward people, but as I got older, I became very protective of people and possessions. After our move I noticed that my father drank a lot, and often passed out on the couch. He worked in shifts at the mill, so I never knew when he would be home. This lifestyle became normal to me: drinking, little structure, and looking over your shoulder to be protective of what you had. I believe my father's drinking problem began in the Navy, and he never really recovered from it. The amazing thing to me is that during this time his job never suffered from it. To this day I believe that my strong work ethic developed from the fact that my dad never missed work for any reason. Maybe he held on to his job because we simply needed the money, or maybe he felt he had something to prove. I can't imagine how he felt never knowing his parents. What a tragedy. As my father moved up through the ranks, my mother wanted a place with a yard for me to play in, and, in general, a better sense of stability for the family. She searched for a home in our price range and found the perfect house in Hobart Township, which was only five or six miles from our apartment. It seemed like a whole different country to me as a kid. In my head, I thought this move would keep my father at home and help him...