It’s just me …
My name is Shelley Brandon, I’m 47 years old, and I’m a widow. But my journey began long before today, so if it’s all the same to you, let’s go back a little further.
Jeremiah 1:5 tells us that God knew everything about us before He placed us in the womb. For most of the last 13 years that elicited from me the response of, “Gee thanks, couldn’t You have found a better way?” I’ve always known that I was adopted, but at the age of 34 I learned the rest of the story. It wasn’t what I’d imagined,… young unmarried lovers, etc. My birth mother was date raped in college. I was conceived in an act of violence.
When my birth mother discovered she was pregnant with me, she went to the young man. She decided that marriage to this monster would be better than being pregnant at the age of 19 and unwed. His response was to give her a check for $200 and advise an abortion. She took the money and bought a ticket to Arizona to stay with an aunt and uncle until she could decide what to do. Her decision was to place me with an adoption agency. She wanted a complete family for me.
She was also afraid she would come to resent me if she saw any of him in me. It’s doubtful that she would have seen anything, but she definitely would have heard him. My singing ability came from his genes. I have a good relationship with my birth mother and her children now, and I thank God daily for her sacrifices for me.
For me being adopted came with a subtitle: “Not Good Enough To Keep.” Growing up I often wondered about this woman and why she didn’t keep me. The self-fulfilling prophecy of “not good enough” played out in many areas of my life. My mother made sure that I was in everything, yet she did most of the work for me to make sure it was ‘right’. Piano lessons starting at age 6 and continuing for 11 years, 4-H and Girl Scouts, and when I was old enough to take musical instruments in school the list grew: violin, clarinet, flute, viola, glockenspiel, xylophone, marimba, chimes and even timpani my senior year. Swing choir, chamber choir, orchestra, band, flag corps, musicals and plays. In high school there were many days when I would go early at 7 a.m. for band, orchestra, or swing choir practice and not get home until 9 p.m. after flag practice and musical or play practices. Graduating from high school 25th out of 240 with a GPA of 3.8, I missed the top 10 percent by 1 –not good enough. It was always there in the back of my mind, not good enough. I heard it from my mother and from my guidance counselors, “You’re not working up to your potential.” Not good enough.
At the age of 22, I married for all of the wrong reasons. I was convinced that I wasn’t good enough for anyone else; if I didn’t marry him I would be alone for the rest of my life. In my wedding photos you can see the sadness in my eyes, knowing I was making a mistake. Three years later our son was born. When my little boy was 3, I filed for divorce. When the emotional, verbal and mental abuse escalated to physical abuse to my little boy, I knew that I could no longer stay in this charade of a marriage. I hadn’t learned anything from it though.
During this time of upheaval and chaos, I had an affair with a man that I’d known for many years. He was married, but told me constantly that he was getting a divorce too. I just had to be patient. He was also mentally and emotionally abusive. Beaten down to a shell of insecurity and fear, I didn’t know what to do when the physical abuse started. I didn’t know it at the time, but whenever he was high on cocaine, he would beat me up. If it weren’t for God I would be dead. He used my boss to save me. My boss could see through the heavy makeup and the age-old excuses. He transferred me from the central Nebraska town I’d grown up in to the corporate offices in Denver.
In Denver my life became calm, and the views of the mountains in the distance became my safe haven. God provided me with a townhouse and a church two blocks away, a job that I loved, a good environment for my son, and friends who quickly became like family. Life was good. After a year, a position opened up in my department for a field technician. When I told my boss that I wanted it, he made sure that I had enough support to get it. At the age of 30, I became the second woman in the company to achieve the rank of Corrosion Technician! God provided me with a company truck and a pink hard hat. I really was an American girl working in my Daddy’s world. I loved it! The position also came with conferences to attend.
It doesn’t take much to imagine the excitement level of a corrosion conference … zzzzz. At the first of these conferences in Casper, Wyoming, I did manage to find something interesting to occupy my time. I found my eyes wandering repeatedly to the man sitting just in front of me and to my right. It was at this time that I heard the still small voice of God for the first time. I didn’t like what He said.
“This is the man you’ve been waiting for.”
Excuse me??? I’m not waiting for any man, thank you very much. My life is just perfect the way it is. Besides, he hasn’t even said, “hi” to me.
Of course you know what happened at the end of the next break, this incredibly handsome man said, “Hi.” OK Lord, very funny! My answer is still NO. I truly believe angels were rolling in the streets of gold holding their bellies, laughing, wheezing, tears streaming down their faces as God said, “Watch this!”
By the end of the evening I was hooked, snared by the worst and most original pick-up line I’d ever heard, “Smell my neck.” Long story short, his neck smelled really good! It took Larry a whopping five and a half weeks to ask me to marry him. I said, “Yes.” Eight months after we married, our world was rocked. His first wife died very unexpectedly from pneumococcal pneumonia. She dropped their two very young sons off for New Year’s weekend and never came back. It was during this time that I heard that voice again, I prayed, “Oh Lord, what will I do if she doesn’t survive? I don’t know how to do this!” God replied, “This is why I brought you here.”
On Jan,8, 1996, the 33-year-old mother of two of my sons passed away after being flown from Traverse City to Ann Arbor for experimental treatments. She never received them. My son Drew was one month away from 7 and my son Scott was 4 ½. Far too young to have your mommy die. Wade, my son from my previous marriage was also one month away from being 7; the day after Drew would turn 7. I had become the full-time mother of three confused and traumatized little boys in the matter of a week.
Blending a family under the best of circumstances isn’t easy. By definition, a blended family means that children have been traumatized. Ours was no exception. We made one very important ground rule in the beginning and stuck to it. I believe that this rule had a very big impact on our success. The word “step” was not allowed to be used in our family. A step is something you walk on, it’s not a person.
We were a family. Period.
My sons are my sons, no matter how they came to be my sons. We added another when our youngest son was born six years later. There is no such thing as a half person. God made people in His image, whole people, no halves.
In 2008, our world was rocked again. We had two sons in college, one was a senior, the youngest was in second grade. On Nov. 3, I had a complete hysterectomy. On Nov. 6, we found out that my husband had a brain tumor. He lost his ability to speak for short periods that day. No other warnings at all that there was an insidious cancer eating away at the core of one of the most brilliant men I’ve ever met.
On Nov. 8, 2008, the tumor was removed for the first time. There would be three more surgeries to remove the unstoppable cancer, along with chemo and radiation. Two of the surgeries were in Germany, 10 days apart. For one year I watched as this amazing man, who had loved me unconditionally – no changes required – for 14 years, slowly die one day at a time. In the end, he was paralyzed completely on the right side. He could no longer talk except for a few one-syllable words and, “I loved you, too.” I will never know if it was because he knew that he was dying or because that was just the way the words came out.
On Nov. 8, 2009, I crawled into the hospice bed in our living room and held Larry in my arms for two hours and 13 minutes while his body labored to deliver his spirit into the hands of Jesus. He’d had angels with him for several weeks. The morning of the 8th he’d had his left arm raised to heaven, reaching for his Savior. That afternoon he’d been gesturing with his left hand and speaking something under his breath. While everyone else was at church, I sat beside him and talked about how we’d met. I told him again how much I loved him, how much I loved being married to him, and that being his wife was the best part of being me. As I held his hand and talked to him, a single tear rolled down his cheek. At 10:13 p.m., I became my worst nightmare of all – a widow.
The path that led me to Larry was necessary for me to become the woman that was perfect for him. The path I am on now is necessary for me to become the woman that God is creating me to be for His glory. My pain and struggles have made me a stronger woman. They have also made me a compassionate woman whose greatest desire is to help others find the grace and mercy of a healing and loving God when they are hurting. Without God I am nothing. With God there is no limit to what I can accomplish.
I met Diane Dike through Patsy Clairmont’s Facebook page. We were both frequent visitors, and Diane noticed the pain and heartache in my comments. She sent me a friend request, which I gratefully accepted, and she has been a daily source of sunshine and inspiration for me. Her beauty and love for the Lord, her courage and her devotion to Gracie and Paul, everything about Diane told me that I could and would keep going. Diane’s loving friendship for me, a woman she’d never met, helped to begin to heal my broken heart. When she invited me to join Fellowship of Second Chances I immediately said YES!
Second chances, third chances, fourth chances …. These have been the story of my life. The common thread in each of these stories is God’s grace and mercy, and HIS unconditional love. God loves me so much that he can’t leave me where I’m. If I can help one other person find their Second Chance in the arms of Jesus Christ, everything I’ve gone through to get here will be worth it a thousand times over.
I am a member of the Prayer Team, a writer, a crocheter (cuddle blankets), and working on getting a certification in Grief Coaching. Through Second Chance with Saving Grace, I will use these gifts and training to reach out to others in grief and help them start their journey toward healing that is found only in God’s loving embrace. Diane wants to help make my dreams come true so we are formulating an “encouragement/prayer team.”
It is an honor and a privilege to be part of this wonderful ministry, and I am so excited to see where God is going to take this. (Those are the same words my late husband used after his first surgery to remove the cancer, and they took us to places we’d never ever thought of, even changed lives other than our own! God IS Good.)
Psalm 121:1-2: I lift up my eyes to the mountains – where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.
