Because I worry now about who I might offend or upset, I feel my blogs have lost their luster and purpose. I want to thank everyone for being faithful readers and offering up helpful comments, funny anecdotes and personal experiences. I’ve learned a lot and am thankful for much.

My journey as a single mom, of course, is neverending, even though my blog ends here.

I was incredibly relieved when it was time to drive her down to the Los Angeles area where she was going to visit her friend Rosemary. I couldn’t wait to get RID of Mary! And then I met Rosemary. I remember the night we met we all went to Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood and saw “Beverly Hills Cop.” After the movie we were walking several blocks back to Rosemary’s car, and we were all pretty quiet, when Mary said, “Oh, Demrie likes to read too.”

Politely I asked Rosemary what books she liked to read and it turned out we had both just read not only John Steinbeck’s “East of Eden,” but she was a big Dorothy Parker fan who I had just discovered as well. We talked non-stop from that moment on and poor Mary was left out of the conversations. I don’t think Mary ever READ a book!

Thus began a very long, wonderful friendship. I would go down to Los Angeles to visit Rosemary (I ended up calling her “Bud” because her college friends called her Rosebud and Mary HATED the nickname) or she would go up to see me. Even when I moved to Oregon a few years later, Bud and I kept in touch and would see one another every chance we could. We were both lengthy letter-writers and to this day I have a box full of her letters to me.

Like too many of us, Bud was a damaged woman. But her story was a bit more horrific than others. Her parents had broken up when she was quite young as her father was extremely abusive to his wife and his three daughters. When Bud was nine, she was at home doing her homework (I believe one of her older sisters was home but upstairs) when a man came into their house, put a bag over her head and kidnapped her from her home. She was thrust into a van and tied down and road like this for hours. We talked about this many times, and Bud said she thought she was going to die.

Hours later, she was handed over to her father who had hired this man to kidnap her. Hundreds of miles from her mother and sisters, Bud went back to the same school she had gone to only a few years earlier, and back to a life her mother escaped from, and waited. She waited for her mother to come get her.

I don’t remember how long Bud lived with her dad, but it was a couple of years. She would speak to her mother and sisters on the phone, but no one came for her. I asked her if she felt abandoned. Bud adored her mother, and would never say a bad word about her, but she admitted she didn’t understand why they didn’t fight for her. Then she would rationalize it by saying she knew her mother barely escaped him herself and if she tried to fight for her daughter back, she might lose everything.

Though a respected college professor on the outside, on the inside Bud’s dad was a very sick man. It took years for me to get the whole story out of her, and usually only after she’d had a few alcoholic beverages. He lived in a house that was nice-looking on the outside but a pig sty on the inside. Bud said they could barely move around the house for all the garbage and piles of newspapers and dirty dishes. They were overrun with rodents and bugs.

She also slept with her father. She had a “room” of her own, but never slept in the bed. She was her father’s sex toy, his caretaker and his prisoner.

I believe she was twelve or so when her two older sisters showed up when they knew their father wasn’t home and took Bud back to Florida, where their mother was. Again, she left everything she owned behind and started over again. But this time she was happy to be where she was.

I met Bud when she was twenty-four and had finished college and moved from Florida all the way to California. She had a good job and great friends, but one never recovers wholly from what she went through. Bud’s apartments were always filthy. I remember cockroaches everywhere and mold growing around windowsills. She had severe asthma, and I believe the way she lived made it much worse. Then she had rabbits as pets and they pooped and pee’d all over her apartments so that the stench was horrible.

She was working for a brokerage firm and adored one of the young brokers who lived a very Hollywood life. She would tell me about his rendezvous and women troubles and the places he went and the wild things he did. She tended to live vicariously through others.

Then one night she called me in tears. I was on the phone with her for hours, trying to calm her down. I was in Oregon at the time, so we were a long ways from one another. She had gone to a party where the broker was at and he had a fight with his Hollywood girlfriend. Bud and another gal drove him home because he was quite drunk. The other gal left to get some coffee and the broker raped Bud. When the other woman returned, he still had Bud pinned to the floor and he was yelling at her that she disgusted him and smelled bad. The other woman fled instead of helping Bud.

The sad thing was that Bud called me because I had stayed with her lots of times and we often shared the same bed when I stayed over and she wanted to know if she smelled bad. Since she had such terrible allergies, she had no sense of smell herself.

I think this incident affected her more than all the years of abuse at her father’s hands. She was not the same afterwards. She quit her job and became a bit of a hermit. She was also very sick, her liver giving her trouble. There was a few years there where she met a guy and they lived together for a while, but he left her and made her more of a loner.

The last time I saw Bud was New Year’s of 2001. She lived in a tiny apartment in Beverly Hills with three rabbits running loose. She was very sick, spending more time in the hospital than out, but was mysterious about what was wrong with her. I knew she was having blood transfusions.

Her apartment was beyond filthy and I got sick while I was there. I knew I wouldn’t be able to visit her there anymore and she was too sick to visit me. But we kept in touch and talked often on the phone. She was working part-time at a veterinary clinic and loved it.

She got a computer and we started emailing. I have an email from her dated just a few months before she died. She continued to be mysterious about being sick and always made it sound like it wasn’t serious.

On October 6, 2005 I got an email from her with the subject of “RFK”. I stared at the email subject field before opening it and I knew; I knew she was gone. I opened the email and it was actually from her mother, letting everyone know that Rosemary was gone.

I miss you, Bud. We talked about getting together so you could meet my son. You knew how much I wanted a child and you were thrilled for me. Today is your day and you are with me.

I can’t help but wonder what she would have been like. Would she have had Sam’s cowlick and big blue eyes? Would she have been born with a ton of hair like I was and Sam was? Would she love water and want a snake or a Barbie Doll instead? How old would she be when she laughed for the first time? Took her first steps? Spoke her first words?

I’m not angry at God for taking her. She’s much better off with him than with me. I just wish Samuel hadn’t known about her. At fourteen weeks I finally told him I was going to have a baby. He was super excited which made things even more difficult because I had to explain to him that she would not be living with us but another mommy and daddy. He could not fathom that. How do you explain to your five-year-old that the next baby will be given away?

I knew I could not raise her myself and the father was not part of the picture at all. Sam needed to be my focus and there was no way I could afford or take care of another baby.

Maybe God knew there was no way I could give the baby up so he handled things for me and took her himself. I don’t know. All I know is she was there and then she wasn’t. I felt her move for the first time just a week before she left me. I remember it being an incredible moment and immediately shared the experience with my friend Kay. It was the first time Kathryn Grace really made herself known to me.

And then she was gone. I actually held her in my hands when her heart stopped beating. She was this diminutive perfect little being. I told her good-bye and promised that I would never forget her.

Today I went to St. Peter’s Church here in Mansfield, Ohio and lit a candle for my little girl and thanked God for my son.

Here was Kathryn Grace at 9 weeks gestation; my only picture of her.

The next several blogs will be about my health journey once again. Any and all encouragement people can offer is greatly appreciated.

I asked my friend Kay to start “bugging” me again by being my support and reminder as she did the last time. She not only sent me articles on health and fitness, but would check in with me each day to encourage and push me. I need that kind of constant reinforcement to get me through the first few weeks.

I have found that I have to start off quite rigidly for the first week to two weeks. My body has grown accustomed to and dependent on sugars and carbs and heavier foods. I will crave these things for the first several days. I will need to focus on cleansing my system by doing mostly a liquid diet with lots of protein and vitamins.

Once my system is cleaned out and the cravings are brought to a minimum, then I can re-introduce my body to healthy foods. This is a tough transition and one I’m not looking forward to, but I remember how great I felt back in April and I want that again.

I need to do this for myself and for my son, so I can keep up with him. He has so much wonderful energy and I’m finding that I’m not doing as much physically with him as I was. We both know it and I need to change that.

Wish me luck!

I had been to one Catholic mass with an elementary school friend and remember it being incredibly foreign to me. As an adult, I “church shopped” for a few years, attending an assortment of churches, from Lutheran and Methodist (I couldn’t really tell the different between these two) to Word of Faith (was very much about money and not so much about God) and an extremely radical Assembly of God church in California. I was uncomfortable with the speaking in tongues, the flailing in the aisles and the overall over-the-top antics.

As I’ve mentioned in earlier blogs, I walked away from religion, the church and my spirituality for many years and only recently returned to believing in a higher power. Too many personal experiences over the past year have led me back to not only my belief in God but a need to rejoin a family in Christ.

As a single parent, I was afraid of how I would be accepted by many churches. Luckily the first church I attended in Wisconsin Rapids was Christian Life Fellowship, an Assembly of God church very different from the one I experienced years ago. This was a family and I felt instantly comfortable and accepted and already miss them now that I’ve moved to Ohio. Pastor Dean and several members of the church came to help me pack the trailers for my move and I will be forever grateful to them.

Upon moving to Mansfield, Ohio, the first weekend was spent moving and we missed church. Sam and I had been to his grandparent’s Catholic Church on several occasions during visits to Ohio and I decided we should go there until we found what worked for us.

The very first time I stepped into St. Peter’s I was in awe of the architecture and artwork. Having grown up in a very plain church with no effigies of Christ or God or Mary (only a simple wooden cross), it was strange to see so much grandeur. Half-way through the mass I was overcome with emotion and had to leave the sanctuary and go outside for some fresh air.

I carried with me many of the preconceived notions of Catholicism. Things like: Catholics worship statues (not true); Mary is a Goddess (not true); Catholics are completely against modern science (again, not true); and the Pope is perfect (he’s human).

I have started reading a great deal about the Catholic Church as I’ve continued to go to mass and learn about Catholicism. I am fascinated with the rituals and order of the mass. I love the “magic” of everything done in the mass and how the congregation becomes as one.

Father Tony is not at all what I expected, either. He is often times funny and delightful and easy to like and respect. I am not uncomfortable in his presence as I expected I would be with a priest. I’ve asked a lot of questions of my Catholic friends and family and have decided to go to RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) to learn what it means to be Catholic and find out if this is the road for me. My son will soon be Baptized and this will initiate him into the Catholic faith since he is still under the “age of reason”. I am also hoping to get him into the Catholic school here in Mansfield where he will get an incredible education.

I don’t know where my path lies now as it has changed so dramatically from where it began, but I am solid in my faith now, which has made all the difference. I just have to let God continue to guide me as he’s done.

On June 24 we loaded up two trailers and two vehicles and headed for Ohio. Several guys from Christian Life Fellowship, including Pastor Dean and Mary Lou from the church office, came to help. I am so very thankful for their help and will miss all of them dearly.

I was worried that Samuel would be sad leaving Wisconsin Rapids, but he was kept too busy to find time to be sad. He got to visit with his friends Harry and Ava and then he helped direct the packing of the trailers. All the excitement prevented him from thinking about the move. But as soon as we were on the road, the reality hit him and he shed some tears when he realized we were leaving Lake Wazeecha and Iverson Park. I promised him we would find new lakes and rivers to swim at in Ohio.

But we’re on a new adventure and he’s been very busy since we arrived in mid-Ohio. His dad is in town, so he’s gone swimming and to fireworks. He also attended his one grandpa’s funeral this past Thursday, and I’m glad he was able to be here for that and be a comfort to his Nana Mary.

I’ve started my new job and am going through an extensive training to learn their order and production system. It’s a strange feeling to be somewhere completely new. I’m totally reliant on my GPS to even get home!

When I moved to Wisconsin from California, people in Wisconsin would ask, “Why the heck did you move here?” I always got a kick out of that. I guess some people in Wisconsin have a romantic notion of California. I had an easy answer for them: “It was crowded, expensive, unsafe, the schools sucked and it took an hour to drive 10 miles no matter where you were going.” I’d get blank stares right back at me.

People in Ohio, however, say, “You’ll love it here in Ohio.” I’ve already had so many people tell me about the places we should go and see. Whether natives or having moved here from somewhere else, mid-Ohians are very proud of their home and what it has to offer. Mansfield is a fairly good-sized city of 50 thousand, yet there’s still that sense of a small town. I’m already running into people who know some of the family members we have here.

Our new townhouse is wonderful and bright and we are settling in nicely. I’m down to just a handful of boxes for each room. Our family here has been a blessing and enormous help in getting us settled in. I am looking forward to what the future has in store for us.

We have created special memories here and I hope my son will remember a lot of them, even though he’s only six. I have many wonderful photos so hopefully that will help to keep the memories alive.

I’d been considering moving closer to our family in Ohio for some time, but it wasn’t until I decided to interview for a job down there that it all happened so fast. I truly did pray about it and asked God to show me a sign if he thought it was the right thing to do.

I never expected to be offered the job the very day I was down there; nor did I expect it to be exactly what I was looking for. In just a couple of days I had a new job and a new place to live. My son is very excited because his grandparents have become a huge part of his life. The idea of seeing them on a regular basis is about the best gift I can offer him.

It’s been a tough week of packing and touching base with friends and saying my good-byes. It also means I’ll no longer be writing this blog, because I’ll no longer be a Wisconsin Rapids single mom, but I hope someone else steps up and picks up where I left off.

It’s been a great pleasure to write for GoRAPIDS.com and be a part of this new, innovative and exciting project that The Goodness Company brought to Rapids first, and are expanding beyond now with their other Go Sites. I feel honored to have been part of the ground floor of the project and will keep an eye on it as it grows through the state as the number one community web site in each of the areas it goes into.

Best of luck GoRAPIDS and local moms. It’s been a pleasure.

Addendum: I spoke with the “powers that be” at GoRAPIDS and they have asked me to continue writing the blog, since my being a Wisconsin Rapids resident isn’t a requirement. The idea of the blog is to talk about being a single mom, and that’s pretty much the same no matter where you go. So you’ll see me back here soon…

Yet I have found myself doing the same thing. I have certain friends whom I can call and say, “Hey, can I come over for a visit?” and they are delighted to have me, but they would never invite me over on their own. Am I committing a serious faux paux by inviting myself?

I have another friend who has children my son’s age and we have a blast when we get together, but I am always the one to instigate the event or activity. I don’t know why she never invites us and have stopped calling.  As a result, it’s been months since I’ve heard from her.

Am I missing something? Should I be reaching out more or less? Put “feelers” out maybe a month ahead of time to get together with friends and their kids? I have one friend who will Facebook me and say, “Hey, we’re going to be in the area…” and sometimes we are able to get together and sometimes not, but there’s been times when an impromptu activity with our kids turned into a fabulous time.

I know people are busy and assume I am busy as well. Where is the middle ground?  I sure could use some advice in this area, so please comment here or email me at demrie@charter.net.

First, I have to say her wedding (which took place in a wonderful little place called Sunset Gardens outside of the downtown area) was perfect and beautiful and magical. It was everything a wedding is meant to be and more.  Below is a photo of me with my baby sister who met the man of her dreams (see my May 2, 2010 blog: Dating Game).

Though the wedding was worth every moment,  Vegas itself was not. I couldn’t help but think of Sodom and Gomorrah while there! Just passing through the casino to get to our room, we passed a mostly-naked woman pole dancing. Every one was either drunk on alcohol or in a gambling frenzy. It was the strangest feeling to be around all of this.

We spent much of our time at the pool where my son could have stayed in the water all day. Thank goodness The Excalibur has a fabulous pool area. That was the saving grace of the trip to fill in time between tux fittings and the wedding itself, and the kids and I spent a great deal of time there. Just don’t drink at the pool unless you want to spend $12/drink.

My Dad was saying Vegas used to be the “cheap” place to go for food and drink since they wanted you to come in and gamble, but that’s all changed. Our room started out at a reasonable $76/night, but then there were all these added fees once we got there to bring it up to $112/night.

At one point we met up with my folks at a raunchy bar in the casino, and even though my son was allowed in at a regular table, it really was NOT an appropriate place to take him. I found myself “on guard” as to what he would be exposed to while there. After the pole dancing woman, my son decided to show us HIS version of pole dancing. Though funny, in retrospect, it was a bit unnerving.

I must say it was a great “people-watching” place as there were people from all over the world. In one afternoon I heard upwards of six different languages.

It’s not someplace I would choose to go on vacation, but it was an interesting experience. One morning I was getting coffee at the Starbucks in the hotel and the roped off area to get in line was all crazy and people walking up were trying to figure out HOW to get in line. A young couple behind me put the line AND Las Vegas into perspective: “Like everything here, it’s just an illusion.”

Besides, today people meet more online than anywhere else. The latest statistics show that over 40 million people use online dating resources today; that’s over 40 percent of the single adult population in the United States. It’s not just a fad anymore; it’s the new way of dating. When done correctly (and safely) it can be a great way to find someone with the same beliefs, desires and likes.

My little sister is getting married this coming month to a man she met online (EHarmony.com). They first were “matched” by EHarmony, to make sure each wasn’t wasting time with someone with completely different views, likes, wants and needs. Then, they communicated via questionnaires, to get to know one another. After that, they were able to email one another via a protected email address through the site. From there, they met at a coffee shop.

He’s not like any of the guys she’s dated before, and definitely nothing like her ex-husband. What I found most interesting was the fact that when she first met him and reported back to me, she said, “He’s someone I could be really good friends with, but I’m not sure if I’m that attracted to him.” What she learned, by getting to know him, was that he was exactly what she needed.  Her attraction of a certain type of man in the past usually meant a man she wasn’t really compatible with. And now, in just a few short weeks, they will be married.

I have only been in one serious relationship that ended badly, so I don’t even have a “track” record to know what NOT to do the next time. I have browsed some of the dating sites, but am afraid to delve too deeply into them. I’d rather meet someone through my church or community, but that seems an amazingly daunting task.  Guys and gals just don’t “reach out” to the singles crowd the way they used to.

I’ve been told that it’s when you aren’t looking that you find someone, but in today’s society, you really have to be more pro-active in seeking out what you want, whether it’s a new vacuum cleaner or a new romance!