April,
“When I first met you, I honestly didn’t know you were going to be this important to me.”
On my knees, and tears uncontrollably pouring from my eyes, my fingers searched through my phone as fast as possible. I scrolled past the phone numbers of my Mom, my sisters, my best friend of 13 years, until I landed on “her” name…April Kirk.
From the moment April answered the phone on that cold January day, my world -for the first time in over a decade- felt as if it finally had an ounce of peace come into it. Trust me, that tiny ounce I clung to…both then and now.
“I should not trust this woman,” I argued to myself. After all, she was sleeping with the enemy. Literally.
For some reason, I felt as if there was a pull in my heart telling me I had to be honest.
I had put on a facade for so long that everything was “fine”, when in fact nothing had been fine for years. I left most people in the dark when it came to my emotions and my life. I had been accustomed to bottling up my feelings and forging on as if nothing were wrong.
When in fact, so much was wrong. Something I had not discussed with those closest to me, I found myself pouring out to April.
Humiliated and tired, this was my Hail Mary. She was the only person that I felt could understand the gravity of my pain, and the only person that could help me. I don’t mean the kind of help that loves and supports, I mean the kind of help that would grab a broom and sweep up the pieces when I was not strong enough to do it myself.
I told her everything. Through the tears and a shaking voice, I let her know that more than anything in the world I only wanted to be the best Mom, and so many odds had been stacked against me.
The walls and habits I built for 30 years, needed to come down.
The most humbling of all things, is showing others your vulnerabilities.
Even more so, I was sharing them with a woman that I had deemed in my eyes as someone who “stole” my husband and took my life out from under me.
But what if there was more to life and more to her than I had allowed myself to see?
Pride on the floor, and the mom crowns set aside, from one woman to another, we broke down. She felt my pain, and even took pieces of it as her own. I could feel the air in my lungs again, and the pit in my stomach slowly start to feel less empty.
As she sat and listened to me sob and confess so many secrets, I felt a bond grow that I would soon learn to be a bond that could never be broken.
The reality was, I needed her, and I needed help as a Mom. I needed the war to end and for my sons to not be impacted by the chaos that I was going through. I needed to trust her and trust that John would not again use my shortcomings against me as a mother.
I was doing the best I could, and I needed their help.
What a truly humbling experience it is, to reach for your enemy in a time of heartbreak and fear.
That experience forged a turning point and an end to a very dark chapter.
As I hung up the phone, I knew no matter how many more tears I shed over this heartbreak and loss, I would survive.
I would survive because had I gained a strength from the most unlikely of sources.
