Aloha, I am Peggy and I am a member of the Kalaheo ward, and
so happy to be so. I have been asked to
share with you something pivotal in my life, something that was kind of a turning
point in my life. And like most of you I
am sure we have all had many turning points in our lives, many things that occurred
in our lives that caused us to make changes or go different directions.
The one that stands out for me the most, that really turned me into the base person that I am today, happened when I was in my early twenties. I had fallen in love with a boy from Florida who had a southern accent, and he was a cowboy and a rodeo person, but he wasn’t the very best choice for me, but I couldn’t help it, I was in love, and I thought I was in love to the end, and I would do anything for this man, anything at all. And I let go of pieces of myself to be with him, I gave up things I believed in, I did things I that I wouldn’t normally do, and it was all in an effort to please him and stay with him, and I became not a person, but I became a support system to him, and I became very weak and vulnerable, and over the course (this is a very long story and if someday any of you are interested you are welcome to come talk to me and I will tell you all about it) but to make the story short, I left Utah, I was living with him in Utah, and ran away from my family in a sense, because I was afraid they were trying to break us apart, and were trying to take my child away from me because I was with him, and in the middle of the night literally packed up and moved away, moved out to where he had a relative in Missouri, and this relative had said “I have a house you can stay in, you can come out here”.
So I left. I didn’t tell my parents, I just wasn’t there anymore, and they didn’t know how to find me. I can’t imagine the horror of that happening to me, not knowing where my child went or where my grandchild went, but I did it, thinking that was the right thing to do, and being so desperate to be with this man.
Went to Missouri and when we went to look at
this house that he had said that we could live in for free and he could work
with this uncle, the house was in the middle of a pasture, literally, behind a
gate with cows all around in the yard wandering around, the house had been deserted
for a long time, it had been vandalized, and when we walked into it, windows were
broken, cupboards had been yanked out, there was no carpet in it, and to top it
all off there was a dead decomposing cow in the middle of the living room, and
this was to be our new home. And I think
at that point I looked inward and said “what have you done? What are you doing
here? And what have you done? This is now going to be your life?” but I had stepped in it, literally, and I
needed to stick with it I felt, and I needed to do everything I can to make my
marriage work to this man since I had a child with him, so we dug in and we
shoveled out dead cow and we boarded up windows and we cleaned everything out, and
people in the ward at that time helped, gave some carpet, there was nothing, there were no appliances,
no heat no anything, so we acquired things through the church members, and we
were doing the best we can, and getting along, but my husband was a drinker, a heavy
drinker and he was a drug user, and he had told me that was going to stop but
it didn’t, and his uncle was also an alcoholic and he abused his wife
physically. And when we were staying at
their place to wait to move into our house I would hear him beating on his wife
and his children screaming and crying, and I was trying to get my husband to
get up and stop it and he wouldn’t intervene, and the next day I tried to tell
the aunt, the wife who had been beaten, that she needed to do something, she
couldn’t live like that. I was appalled that she was bloody and black
and blue and hurting and the kids were traumatized, and I said “just lock the
bedroom door when he comes home drunk, and then at least maybe you can stop
yourself from being hurt”. But being
young and naïve at that time, and not being really aware of what abusive
husbands can be like, the next time that happened and she locked the door, he
came after me with a gun because I was the reason why his wife was defying him
now. And so I had to lock myself behind
a door with my child as my husband slept drunk in the bed next to me, listening
to the uncle threaten to kill me and again it reiterated in my head “what have
I done? What am I doing here?” and I
told my husband the next day “we were moving out, I didn’t care if we had to live in the middle
of the field in a tent I was not going to live there any longer.”
So we moved into this house and tried to start our life there, it was not a very good start and it didn’t turn out to be a very good ending, and I stayed there with him for six months, and put up with a lot of different things that I should never have had to put up with, and it finally, finally came to a point where he came to me and said he didn’t want to be married to me anymore, that he had had a friend of his move up from Florida and the two of them just wanted to play and party. And I still begged and pleaded with him to make it work right up until the day that I had packed up the car and a U-Haul van and my brother had flown out to drive me back to Utah, right up to that last minute, I still said to him “if you ask me to stay I will unpack everything and stay” I was still desperate to be with this man but I said to him “if you let me go, that is it. I won’t ever come back to you.” and he said “no it is best that you go. I don’t want to be married, I don’t want to be a dad” and that was devastating to me.
And I drove away, and I cried for about two
hours until my brother said “that is it! You will not cry another tear for that man! he
is not worth it!” and on that trip home with my brother it took three days in a
turquoise blue gremlin with everything I own packed in and on top of it. We looked like Okies from Muskogee coming across country with my mattress
strapped to the top of the car, and at one point the back hatch popped open and
clothes were flying out and we didn’t
even know because the car was so packed we didn’t hear it, we had passersby have
to tell us.
Half way home I got down on my knees in a motel room and I prayed, and I hadn’t prayed in a long time, and all I asked was for the Lord to give me strength to see me through this time in my life, and I got up the next morning and I prayed again. And my brother was very reverent next to me, he wasn’t very religious but he stood by, and when I got done saying my prayers he gave me a hug and he told me, he looked me in the eye, and he said “you are a strong person, and you will be better than this” and the next day and a half we got home to my parents yard, and we pulled in, and I was not at my parent’s house for more than thirty minutes, when my husband called me and said “he had made a big mistake, and that I should come back” and I had a burning feeling inside of me that gave me the strength to say “no. you had your chance. I told you the way it was going to be. and that is the way it is going to be, and we are done now.” You have to realize that up to this point we had broken up and gotten together three times, gotten divorced and gotten married twice, I was so desperate to stay with this man, so for me to tell him ‘no, I wasn’t coming back this time’ and ‘it was over’
I knew that was strength from the Lord! and I hung up the phone and I went into the bedroom and I kneeled down and I prayed again to thank my Heavenly Father for having given me the strength to decide that this is not what my life should be about, and not the life that my child should have. And I vowed from that moment on, and I asked Heavenly Father every day after that, to help me to become the person I needed to be, that I could live independently and take care of myself and my son, and not ever become that hooked on somebody that I would become another person, that I would let all of my values, and all of my self-esteem, and all of my pride go out the window, just to be with somebody. I was never going to do that again.
And even though I have since had other chapters and other trials in my life, I have always stuck to that, I have always been the person that was independent and could take care of myself, and stuck to my values even when I drew away from the church and wasn’t attending my meetings I still strongly believed everything the church has taught me, and always tried to incorporate that into my life, and now here I am back into the church again, and I feel stronger than ever! And I feel that it was that turning point in my early twenties that helped me to become and stay the person that has helped me to be where I am today!
The one that stands out for me the most, that really turned me into the base person that I am today, happened when I was in my early twenties. I had fallen in love with a boy from Florida who had a southern accent, and he was a cowboy and a rodeo person, but he wasn’t the very best choice for me, but I couldn’t help it, I was in love, and I thought I was in love to the end, and I would do anything for this man, anything at all. And I let go of pieces of myself to be with him, I gave up things I believed in, I did things I that I wouldn’t normally do, and it was all in an effort to please him and stay with him, and I became not a person, but I became a support system to him, and I became very weak and vulnerable, and over the course (this is a very long story and if someday any of you are interested you are welcome to come talk to me and I will tell you all about it) but to make the story short, I left Utah, I was living with him in Utah, and ran away from my family in a sense, because I was afraid they were trying to break us apart, and were trying to take my child away from me because I was with him, and in the middle of the night literally packed up and moved away, moved out to where he had a relative in Missouri, and this relative had said “I have a house you can stay in, you can come out here”.
So I left. I didn’t tell my parents, I just wasn’t there anymore, and they didn’t know how to find me. I can’t imagine the horror of that happening to me, not knowing where my child went or where my grandchild went, but I did it, thinking that was the right thing to do, and being so desperate to be with this man.
So we moved into this house and tried to start our life there, it was not a very good start and it didn’t turn out to be a very good ending, and I stayed there with him for six months, and put up with a lot of different things that I should never have had to put up with, and it finally, finally came to a point where he came to me and said he didn’t want to be married to me anymore, that he had had a friend of his move up from Florida and the two of them just wanted to play and party. And I still begged and pleaded with him to make it work right up until the day that I had packed up the car and a U-Haul van and my brother had flown out to drive me back to Utah, right up to that last minute, I still said to him “if you ask me to stay I will unpack everything and stay” I was still desperate to be with this man but I said to him “if you let me go, that is it. I won’t ever come back to you.” and he said “no it is best that you go. I don’t want to be married, I don’t want to be a dad” and that was devastating to me.
Half way home I got down on my knees in a motel room and I prayed, and I hadn’t prayed in a long time, and all I asked was for the Lord to give me strength to see me through this time in my life, and I got up the next morning and I prayed again. And my brother was very reverent next to me, he wasn’t very religious but he stood by, and when I got done saying my prayers he gave me a hug and he told me, he looked me in the eye, and he said “you are a strong person, and you will be better than this” and the next day and a half we got home to my parents yard, and we pulled in, and I was not at my parent’s house for more than thirty minutes, when my husband called me and said “he had made a big mistake, and that I should come back” and I had a burning feeling inside of me that gave me the strength to say “no. you had your chance. I told you the way it was going to be. and that is the way it is going to be, and we are done now.” You have to realize that up to this point we had broken up and gotten together three times, gotten divorced and gotten married twice, I was so desperate to stay with this man, so for me to tell him ‘no, I wasn’t coming back this time’ and ‘it was over’
I knew that was strength from the Lord! and I hung up the phone and I went into the bedroom and I kneeled down and I prayed again to thank my Heavenly Father for having given me the strength to decide that this is not what my life should be about, and not the life that my child should have. And I vowed from that moment on, and I asked Heavenly Father every day after that, to help me to become the person I needed to be, that I could live independently and take care of myself and my son, and not ever become that hooked on somebody that I would become another person, that I would let all of my values, and all of my self-esteem, and all of my pride go out the window, just to be with somebody. I was never going to do that again.
And even though I have since had other chapters and other trials in my life, I have always stuck to that, I have always been the person that was independent and could take care of myself, and stuck to my values even when I drew away from the church and wasn’t attending my meetings I still strongly believed everything the church has taught me, and always tried to incorporate that into my life, and now here I am back into the church again, and I feel stronger than ever! And I feel that it was that turning point in my early twenties that helped me to become and stay the person that has helped me to be where I am today!
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