My Story
The linoleum was cold on my feet as Christie and I slipped into the
dark kitchen. My sister, Amanda's, ninth birthday slumber party had
been great and now it was time to make breakfast. Christie dug in
the olive green refrigerator while I hunted up the Betty Crocker. We
gathered our ingredients with the normal whispers and giggles of
seven year olds. I couldn't find a recipe for raspberry muffins so I
used the blueberry muffin recipe.
“So how many raspberries do we put in?” Christie whispered. Her
mom didn't cook much. This was her first time in the kitchen.
“It doesn't say anything about raspberries. Maybe we should just
use the whole bag,” I said.
She looked at the gallon bag of hand picked raspberries for a moment
and agreed. We poured the gallon of berries and juice in and eagerly
waited for the lovely pink batter to cook.
The remainder of this story is rather obvious. The poor muffins
were ruined! We have pictures of the disaster. I still get teased
about it on the holidays. What I have wondered as an adult is: what
on earth were two seven year olds doing in the kitchen alone?!?!?
The answer to that explains a
lot about who I am.
My parents were loving, hard working people. We never doubted that
we were loved or that we would have food on the table. I was the
middle of three children. Amanda, eighteen months my senior; and
Jacob, five years my junior. My mother was a nurse who could always
pick up extra shifts if money was tight. Dad was a jack of all
trades. He dropped out of school after eighth grade and worked as a
trucker, electrician, handyman, janitor, AC repairman and now freezer
maintenance for an ice cream company. He would work any job to
provide for his family. They taught all three of us children to work
hard too. In order for the house to run smoothly, we all had jobs to
do. My sister and I learned to cook at an early age. By the time we
were twelve and thirteen we did most of the housework as well.
When Amanda and I were very young, my parents became Christians.
Some of my earliest recollections are church events and worship. My
parents understood so little about God and we learned with them as
they did. It was natural for us to pray and talk of God. We never
questioned whether or not we belonged to Him or whether He really
existed.
When Amanda and I were school-age, Mom decided to homeschool us long
enough to teach us to read well. The book “Why Johnny Can't Read”
had affected her strongly and she wanted us to have a good start.
She joked in later years that she guessed we just never read well
enough because she never did put us in school. We did attend one
semester of public school. Dad had been out of work for some time
and had found a job in Virginia. He traveled up from Tyler, TX and
promised to come back for us as soon as possible. Mom and us kids
moved in with Grandma and Grandpa who insisted we go to school. It
was rough for everyone. Mom had a new baby (Jacob) and we didn't
really understand why Dad was gone. Our friends at school told us he
would never come back. He did. Later that year, we all moved to
Virginia. Even Grandma and Grandpa followed and found a house close
by.
My parents have said that living in Virginia was hard. Everything
was expensive and it took a long time to find friends. As a child I
remember the huge house we rented with the big backyard and lots of
trees. Amanda and I played together all day long and alternately
babied Jacob or avoided him. We learned to love reading and make
believe. Mom and Dad got us a piano and a guitar and encouraged us
to learn how to play. We joined a church and a homeschool group and
were leading families in the Virginia homeschool movement. I hated
math; loved acting and singing. Mom discovered that I had dyslexia
and had to spend lots of time helping me understand various
educational concepts. We began learning sign language. For me, life
in Virginia was easy.
Another great perk of living where we did was that Washington, D.C.
was only an hour away. Friends and family would come visit during
the summer or on holidays and we would haunt the Smithsonian. Our
homeschool group did field trips to the Arlington Cemetery and
Monticello. We picnicked by the Potomac river in the spring.
One of my biggest childhood struggles was bedwetting. I was born a
preemie. I don't know if that had anything to do with my struggles,
but my other siblings didn't have the same problem. Dad had been a
bedwetter as a kid, so my parents were more understanding than some.
I was woken from sleep one night by Mom wiping my face with a cool
rag. A strange man was with her who explained to me that he had a
machine to help me learn to not wet the bed. They slipped a strange
metal pad under me that was hooked to a machine and explained that
when I wet the bed it would wake me up and help me learn to go to the
bathroom. It woke me in the dark of night with a reverberating
clamor and an ominous red light. I ran out of the room in a panic,
too afraid to turn it off. My parents tried to get me to use the
contraption but eventually gave it up. I eventually learned how to
control my problem on my own.
Christie was my best friend in Virginia. She was an only child of a
Philippino mother and an American father. Her grandmother, who lived
with them, didn't speak any english. I loved to sit in the kitchen
and listen to Lola and Mrs. Peer talk. It sounded so romantic. The
experience probably ignited my love of languages. Christ ie and I
spent hours talking girl talk in the tree in their back yard or
playing dress-ups with the prom dresses my mom had found for us at
the local Goodwill. We were inseparable. I'll never forget the day
Christie told me their family was going to move to Georgia.
“We won't be able to be best friends any more,” she said
matter-of-factly.
“We can try,” I countered. My heart was pounding and I fought
back tears.
“We'll probably find other best friends,” she said.
We ended up moving from Virginia to Ft. Smith, Arkansas before
Christie and her family moved, but the relationship was never the
same.
Moving away from Virginia was an adventure for me. Living in the
south was so different. People carried groceries to our car. Sonic
was a novel experience. Eventually we moved from a set of seedy
apartments in Arkansas to a home with five acres just across the
river in Oklahoma. Now we were country people. Dad's brother showed
up on our doorstep with ten colored chicks from the feed store and a
goat. We researched chickens with relish and build a chicken coop in
hopes of getting eggs someday. Every chicken turned out to be a
rooster. One thing city people don't know is that baby roosters
don't come with a fully developed crow. When they hit puberty they
begin developing it with all the skill of a thirteen year old boy
trying to sing in the choir. It didn't take long of being woken at
5:30 in the morning with a cascade of aching crows for us to decide
that these chickens would make better soup than pets. The goat grew
up to be an ornery thing and was shipped off to a friend who wanted
him.
A long trip further into the country finally ended at a large field
full of horses. A weathered old cowboy sold my parents a chestnut
mare he promised would be the perfect children's horse. Another thing
city people have to learn is that the horse is the cheapest part of
the deal. Sugarbaby came home and we bought saddles and brushes and
feed. A bay pony followed her; then a parade of others. My early
teenage years were taken up with showdeos (a junior rodeo), horse
shows and trail riding. I learned to ride english, western and
bareback. My parents bought a baby and Dad and I broke her to ride.
Hours and hours were spent learning and working with the gorgeous
creatures.
Not long after we bought our first
horse, I fell off of one and broke my shoulder. That was the
beginning of a long series of family tragedies that marked my
adolescence. I can't remember them all in order. They all came on
so fast. Amanda came down with Transverse-Myelitis and was paralyzed
from the waist down. She had to relearn how to walk again. Dad fell
off a horse and broke his shoulder bone, scapula and several ribs.
He was out of work for a couple of months. Grandma was diagnosed
with lung cancer. We spent lots of time with her in her last months.
Dad had his first heart attack when I was almost sixteen. We spent
my sixteenth birthday back in the hospital with him. Grandpa died of
liver failure. He'd been a cargo pilot in the air force. Lots of
his cargo had been agent orange. All of these tragedies forced us to
grow up fast. We took care of the house and our own school work
while the adults dealt with the difficulties. I questioned the
goodness and faithfulness of God. He showed Himself good and
faithful in the midst of difficult circumstances.
When I was fifteen, I met David's family for the first time. His
mom was having a baby. My sister worked with the midwife who helped
her deliver. They were homeschoolers too! They hadn't been involved
in our homeschool group before this. They got involved in the
homeschool group and started going to church with us. When Dad was in
the hospital and recovering from his heart attack, I went to
homeschool coop classes with the Baucoms. When David's dad got
pneumonia, and David and his older siblings were gone, I moved in and
helped out for a week. The Baucom family quickly became my second
family. David is the oldest of seven, so his younger siblings were
pretty young. Their family celebrated the Biblical Holidays instead
of our conventional Christian ones. That fascinated me. I learned
about the holidays and how they point to Christ. David played the
guitar and we quickly hit it off. He started teaching me how to play
better and we spent hours after church practicing. Many Sundays I
would hang out with the older three Baucom kids: David, Diane and
Joel. We'd get Joe Muggs coffee and sit talking at Books-A-Million
for hours. Diane became my best friend. I quickly began to compare
every other guy I knew to David. None of them measured up. But he
didn't seem particularly interested in me. He was four years older.
I settled in for friendship and worked hard to just enjoy his company
without hoping for more.
I started taking college classes when I was sixteen. As dual
enrollment, I took one class at a time until I graduated high school.
By the time I was eighteen, I already had a semester of college
behind me. College was a different thing for me. Before I had
always been described as 'one of the Rowell girls'. Everyone knew my
parents, my sister, my brother. I was defined by my family. In
college, I had to begin figuring out who I was on my own. I was
known only as Danielle Rowell. It was a novel concept for me. I
enjoyed my studies and interaction with teachers. Interactions with
my classmates was more difficult. Many of them seemed immature. I
was used to being responsible for my own school work and studies.
Getting good grades was important to me. I was going to college on a
scholarship and didn't have the money to try again if I failed. I
didn't really form any lasting friendships in College. Then again, I
already had the one that mattered most to me.
Just after I graduated, the Baucoms announced that they were moving
to South Dakota. It would probably only be for six months, but I was
heartbroken. My anchor was being pulled out from underneath me and I
wasn't sure what to do. They left and I cried all night long. When
Diane called me before spring break and her family offered to fly me
up to visit I was ecstatic. I left my books behind and spent a
glorious week and a half in South Dakota. We went to the badlands
and Rushmore and Crazy Horse. We laughed and talked and played
together. I got to be close to David again for a while. We stayed up
all night after a movie with his siblings sleeping around us and
talked. I knew now that David was the only guy I would ever want to
marry. But we were still just friends. When their six months was
over, they learned that they'd be moving to Texas.
I helped the Baucoms pack to move to Texas. My heart bled with
every packed box, but I tried to work cheerfully anyway. Diane and I
emailed each other constantly while they were in Texas and I tried to
focus on my schoolwork. One day, Diane sent me an email.
“I think David is going to talk to some girl's dad,” she said.
I felt sick as I stared at the words. I was going to lose him
forever. If he'd just stay single, at least we could be friends! I
prayed and sought to give the situation to God.
The next weekend, David showed up
at my church. I expected him to announce that he was courting a
girl. Or maybe already engaged. He led worship that day and I
struggled to pay attention to the chords we were playing. No
announcement came. After church, David blew me off. I was a little
upset that he didn't want to hang out as usual until I saw him
talking to my dad. Talking to MY dad! My heart fell to my stomach
and started fluttering around there. Poor Dad. Mom had to work that
day. He was left driving home with just me and Jacob. Amanda had
gotten married the year before to her childhood sweetheart. The next
week was excruciating. The parents talked and prayed and whispered
behind closed doors. Finally, my parents gave David permission to
pursue a relationship with me. (If any of this sounds
old-fashioned......it is. Our parents latched on to some very
conservative beliefs and raised us very carefully. There's ups and
downs to that, but right now it's just part of my story.)
David and I courted for four months. We were engaged for eight. We
were legally married two weeks before our actual wedding date so that
our dads could perform the wedding ceremony. On June 1, 2002, I
married my best friend. Our first kiss was an awkward one in front
of the entire audience but we've gotten better. We honeymooned for a
week in South Padre before coming home to Texas.
Married life has been an adventure. Much of it has been spent
realizing that we don't believe all the same things our parents did.
Reviewing our own relationship with God, with each other, with life.
Assumptions we originally held have changed and we're stronger for
it. We still celebrate the Biblical holidays, though we take part in
our church and my families celebrations too. We are homeschooling
our children but are willing to accept that other forms of schooling
may be used in the future. We live in the country, but aren't really
wedded to the idea of getting back to nature.
I got pregnant with Danae after 3 months of marriage. We were so
excited! We put money down on a home and moved out to the country.
Pregnant life was difficult. I was tired and sick. No one told me
my personality might change or that I might gain fifty pounds and
have a hard time losing it. We assumed that I'd be able to give
birth naturally like my sister had. I couldn't. Danae was born by
c-section in Tyler on May 24, 2003. She was over a week late but
otherwise healthy happy and adorable. Adjusting to motherhood wasn't
easy but it was satisfying. Thankfully Danae was an easy baby
because I was pregnant again just 9 months later.
Drew was born by c-section in Tyler on October 6, 2004. He was five
weeks early and sick. The doctors rushed him to Dallas and he spent
almost two weeks in the NICU. As soon as I was released from the
hospital I went and stayed with him. When he came home he was fussy
and didn't sleep well. After two months, we discovered acidophilus
for babies and it changed our life. It settled Drew's stomach and he
became a happy, compliant baby. We figured we were done having
babies.
In June 2007 we decided to try one more time. I was beginning to
get my own health under control and we really desired to add to our
family. Devin was born April 6, 2009 after nearly a month in the
hospital. He was early and tiny. He refused to nurse or sleep. He
also refused to act like a preemie, preferring instead to try and
catch up to his siblings as quickly as possible. Now he's a
headstrong, healthy, lovable little two year old.
While forming our family has been the biggest adventure of the last
few years, we've been busy while doing it. When Danae was three
months old, we took her camping. We hiked in the mountains of New
Mexico and even made a trip to Juarez. When I was pregnant with
Drew, we packed ourselves and a couple of David's brothers up and
spent two weeks in Washington, D.C. Last year we made a trip out to
California, stopping at the Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest on the
way. We love to travel and experience life. Someday we'll pack up
the family for a European vacation. There's too much of the world to
see to spend all of it in one place.
For David and I, adoption has always been an option. We didn't know
exactly how we'd go about doing it, but we've always had the desire
to do so. Foster care is a step toward that for us. We have the
opportunity to welcome children into our home and providing them
stability when they need it the most. Honestly, we do hope to
eventually find a child or two (or three!) that we can adopt on the
way. God has blessed us with open hearts and a peaceful home and
we'd like to share that as much as possible. We weren't long married
before we began coming across people who had adopted or were doing
foster care. Everywhere we turned, it seemed like God was nudging us
in that direction. Actually taking steps toward doing it has been
scary. There are so many 'what if's' in the situation. Mostly,
'What if this doesn't work out?'. Everyone knows someone who's had a
horrible experience with foster or adopted kids. We are choosing to
step out in faith and know that God knows where He's leading.
I was looking through my daughter's photo album the other day.
There was a picture of her about eighteen months old. She was
sitting on our kitchen island dressed in a jumper, covered in some
kind of cake batter and licking a beater. The look of utter joy on
her face made me smile. Today, Danae and her cousin got into the
kitchen made a cake for my brother-in-law's birthday. I realized
that somewhere along the way, I've begun equipping my daughter to
live her own life. I hovered in the corners making sure that
everything was done right but I wasn't really needed. Amy and Danae
read instructions, measured, stirred and scraped. They talked and
giggled like girls do and when they were done, a beautiful yellow
cake was baking in the oven. While I hope that my daughter can learn
life's lessons in an easier way than I did, I find myself thankful
for the responsibility that I learned to bear. It grew me into the
woman I am today.
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