I Wanna Know What Love Is...

We were barely 18 and we first danced to this song...

In 1985 Louisiana, we were legal to drink...

Legal to marry...

Ridiculously legal to think we had all the answers.

At the tender age of 20, we married.

In 1987 Louisiana, it was legal for two children to have a child.

And, that, we did.

She came into the world on November 23, 1987 a frail little girl...

Weak from the nine months of improper prenatal care...

The product of an extremely immature and scared mother...

And, a father that had no idea what to do except what she told him to do.

And, she flourished.

The road was a little rocky and questionable at first, but she grew...

She grew in my heart...

She grew in his heart.

Two kids raising a kid...

And, but by the grace of God...

All three of us made it.

She and I would pack up sack lunches and head out to the park every single day.

She and I grew up together.

A little unfair to her, I know, because she helped raise her mother...

Her mother learning her mistakes along the way...

The one thing she did know was that this child...

This precious human being...

Was the reason for her existence.

We were a family.

The three of us were all we knew.

Loving one another...

Holding onto one another...

When there was nothing else to cling to.

The years passed.

We grew up.

We grew apart, her dad and me.

Not his fault, and not mine.

Both of us victims of the clock that seemed to tick against us.

In late 1991, we realized I was having another baby.

I remember my baby girl anxiously awaiting the arrival of her baby sister.

The joke was on her.

Her baby brother came into the world on June 10, 1992.

And, the three of us became four.

We lived...

We loved...

We tried...

We faked it...

We did all we could to hold that world together.

Our efforts were all for nothing...

In the end, there was no amount of responsibility, nor longing that could allow us to go on any further.

It was a bittersweet end...

And, I was left to explain to those two little faces what had happened...

Why life as they knew it was no more.

From that day forward, I have felt guilty...

Guilty for shattering their world...

Guilty for shattering his world...

And, today, I realized something...

I have carried 11 years of guilt that I should not have carried.

I gave it my best.

I have no reason to feel what I feel.

It is not right.

I did nothing wrong except to try to hold it together...

When circumstances dictated it would never work.

I held on...

I held strong...

And, in the end, it wasn't enough.

I have the best that world had to offer me...

It's in the bedroom that I walk partially into each morning at 6:10 a.m. and say, "It's ten after six, baby. Time to get up."

It's in that voice on the phone that can't help but call me and without taking a breath say, "Mom, you will NOT believe what just happened..."

The best of that world...

Where I know what love is...

Lives in her.

It lives in him.

Wanna know what love is?

Love belongs to me.

In my world, love begins with a "K" and a "C".

Yes, I know what love is.

And, you can't stop my love...