I am still here. I have wanted to post something for a few days now, but couldn't seem to get the motivation up to do it. I'm hanging in there. It seems sometimes like the pain will never go away, but I know someday it will be easier to deal with. Going through my parents things was the hardest thing I have ever done, but I got through it. My real dad never wanted to admit that he was my father because he had cheated on his wife, I was the proof. So when my step dad adopted me at 15, I finally felt like I had 2 parents who loved me.
Me and my mom were very close, we had been through so much together that we were more than mother - daughter, we were friends.
When I was born my mother had to take me to work with her because no one would babysit a handicapped infant. Her boss would entertain me while she worked, she made him my godfather. He died about 15 years ago. He had given my mother a teddy bear and a jewelry box shaped like a ginger bread house. My mother gave me the teddy bear after our car wreck. She told me that when she was gone, the jewelry box would go to me. It's sitting on my dresser now.
The thing I got from my father, I got 13 years ago. Most of my life I carried the family name of the man my mom almost married that said he would raise me as his own. That is until I was born, then my disability was too much for him and he took off. At 15 my dad gave me his name, something I had always wanted. And because of the way that Mexicans pass down names, I was able to give my daughter this amazing name.