Walk With Me

I don’t know why we picked the coldest night of the year or in many years to go camping, but we definitely did. A friendly neighbor wisely bunkering down in the camper next to our tent informed us when the sun finally broke the next morning that it had reached eighteen degrees Fahrenheit  at the coldest point before dawn where we were by the lake. It had all started so quaint. We were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and Manning had brought Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies, my favorite. What could possibly go wrong? The five of us descended on Lake Delancey one afternoon to go on a camping trip we had been discussing for some time. There were the three amigos, Jason Arnold (my husband at the time), Jason Manning, and Greg Walwik. Between high school and restocking at Winn-Dixie, these guys formed a friendship that covered thousands of miles in travel to visit each other as life took them their separate ways. There were two tag-alongs on the camping trip, one was me of course, and...

  Rosie O’Donnell and Madonna became close friends when they did a movie together called League of Their Own . The two were an unlikely pair to most people on the outside looking in, but not  for me. I knew they were in an exclusive club that I also belonged to. For that reason, I felt a kinship and sisterhood with these two strangers, two celebrities, that I had seemingly nothing in common with. I was initiated when I was just 7 years old to the club that no one wants to join.  There is only one way to become a member of the Dead Mothers Club. After my parents’ divorce, my mom and I moved in with Tony, her boyfriend and her sanctuary from my father’s abuse. At first, he showered her with affection and gifts and attention, things that she had been a craving for a long time from my father, who was too busy going through his own issues to be able to take care of her.  While Tony was not always good to my mother, he was always kind to me. For my sixth birthday he and my...