During the 2008 Democratic National Convention Joe Biden’s son told the story of the death of his mother and the way his family rebuilt itself after tragedy. Halfway through his speech he uttered a line that still plays in my heart, “And then we married Jill.”
I didn’t have the world’s best childhood. The first 13 years of my life were mirthless and often violent. It is with no sense of hyperbole that I say I am lucky to be alive and writing with you today.
But it wasn’t luck, honestly, it was my mother. My mother took me out of a bad situation; my mother literally saved my life. We left hell and we learned to live – on our own—together. She taught me how to be independent; she taught me how to be happy again.
And then, in time, we met Dennis.
My mother started dating Dennis when I was a teenager and their connection was instantaneous. Within months they were deeply in love and I had a father figure that would make Seth Cohn jealous. Like Jill Biden, when Dennis married my mother, he married into a family. The years between then and now are filled with beautiful moments of a family coming together, of a girl learning to trust a father figure and of a man learning to be a husband and father.
Dennis isn’t a white knight; he didn’t rescue us from a bad situation. My mother rescued herself and rescued me. I’d like to think of Dennis more as karmic retribution. We’d been through the worst, so the universe sent us the best.
I’ve written before about my history of abuse and even the dating violence I experienced. Through the lessons of my mother and my friends I’ve tried not to allow that victimization define me. I think it’s so easy to get so caught up in the aspects of hate and victimization — especially if that victimization happens at a young age — that we don’t trust or accept love and happiness when it presents itself to us.
But I’ve learned – and am continuing to learn – about love and how to appreciate it. And I have to credit a lot of that to the love found between my mother and Dennis.