It’s hard to know where to begin Destiny’s story. I suppose I could start before she was born with her own mother and tell her story sequentially. Or I could start in mid stream and tell you what led up to a disastrous marriage and the loss of one of her children. I think however I will start here, in the present and fill in the details as I go.

Destiny Williams is my friend, which is how I happen to know so much about her. Destiny is a rather plain, over weight brunette, who just turned forty. For one reason or another, she has allowed herself to be a victim most of her life. Somehow though she has managed to survive child abuse, an unhappy marriage, losing a child during a divorce, and all of the pain that these events have dropped in her lap over the years. I’m not trying to portray her as super woman or a saint; she’s by no means either. She has by her own admission done her share of sinning in her lifetime. Destiny suffers from depression and has the lowest self-esteem of anyone I have ever met in my life. She described herself once to me as being “weak”. My opinion of her is so different. I see her as one of the strongest people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. She has contemplated suicide on more than one occasion and fought the desire for the easy way out. I have watched her at her lowest points find the inner strength to fight her depression and her circumstances when the slightest touch from her daughter’s hand or a gentle embrace from her fiancee gave her just the spark she needed to continue living.

Yesterday I saw her hit one of those low points. Her son just turned thirteen and she called to wish him a happy birthday. I saw the pain in her eyes when he was more interested in spending time with his friend than talking to his mother. She’s really had a hard time accepting his choice to live with his father. That alone would be hard for anyone to deal with but she also has one of those holier-than-thou type ex husbands who has used the children as tools to cause her pain whenever he got the chance. He and his girlfriend seem to take pleasure in causing her to be miserable whenever and however they possibly can.

Divorce is always hard, I would know I have been through two myself. It seems impossible for two people involved in a divorce to both continue to be friends with the people they associated with while they were together. During both my divorces some friends sided with me and some friends sided with my ex. I can’t think of a single person we were friends with whom we both still associate. Destiny’s divorce was a little different. While she was married their friends seemed to take pity on her and couldn’t seem to understand how she could possibly continue to live with such an asshole. For a while after her separation, there were friends who chose to just avoid them both and then were those who seemed to try and stand by them both. I don’t know what her ex husband did or said that swayed them but at some point he seemed to gain “custody” of all their friends. It was during this time that I met Destiny for the first time. She seemed to be all alone in the world, abandoned by her former friends, far from her brother and basically forgotten by her own mother. The only relative I recall her having any contact with was her grandfather, an Alzheimer's patient who was confined to a nursing home. Destiny cherished her grandfather. She spent more time at the nursing home than she spent in her own home. She told me once that her grandfather had been like a substitute father to her, since thirteen years passed after her mother’s divorce with only one word from her father.

Destiny really had no one. I was her only friend. With her brother living hundreds of miles away and her mother too busy with her own life to pay any attention to her daughter and grandchildren, her grandfather and her children were her only family. This lack of human contact and caring sent her to the internet where she dredged up some strange friends. I worried about her constantly. On weekends the children spent with their father, if she and I didn’t have plans you could be certain she would be meeting someone that she had encountered online. There was a strange little man named Norbert who she dated a few times, and a geeky little college professor who taught computer classes at the local college, and an assortment of perverts she chose to hang around with whenever she was alone. I can’t count the times I told her she was going to be murdered or mutilated by one of these online “friends”.

One Friday night she called me after work to see if I wanted to go out. I already had a date planned so I promised her I would call her on Saturday. Out of the blue she tells me that she’s going to contact this man she’s been chatting with online and see if they can get together instead! I thought she was nuts! My cell phone rang in the middle of my date, it was Destiny. She told me that she emailed me this guys screen name, real name and just enough information for the police to find her in case she wasn’t home by Sunday. Cheerfully she told me she was off to Virginia and hung up the phone. I don’t think I enjoyed another minute of my date. I kicked myself all evening for telling her I was busy. Why would she email me details about this man and then drive an hour and a half to meet a stranger?

I didn’t hear from Destiny all weekend and I was worried sick. On Sunday evening I called her house and to my surprise her internet friend was there with her. All my worries and fears turned out to be groundless. When I met him I was amazed that she had found this nice, normal man on the internet. Looking back I have to laugh about it now. Destiny and Steve have been together for four years now. In fact they are planning to get married next month! Which brings me back to what happened yesterday.

I told you that divorces are hard and some are just downright strange. When Destiny divorced her ex husband not only did he get “custody” of all their friends and custody of their son, he apparently got “custody” of her remaining family! During Destiny’s call to her mother yesterday, Destiny asked her mother if she had gotten her last letter about her upcoming wedding. Her mother asked her if she was really getting married next month and Destiny answered yes. I heard Destiny explaining to her mother that she and Steve had decided since their families were somewhat scattered and they had few friends close by to just have a simple ceremony with a justice of the peace. She went on to explain that with the exception of Steve’s parents and her daughter it would be a private ceremony. Before Destiny could say that she had planned on both her children being present until she learned her ex husband had chosen the same week to remarry her astonished mother blurted out that she couldn’t believe they had chosen the same week to remarry! Destiny continued her conversation and I saw the pain cross her face. I didn’t know why my friend was so close to tears she could barely speak until she hung up the phone.

Her mother, who had not attended her first wedding, had just announced that she was planning to attend her Destiny’s ex husband’s wedding! When she hung up the phone she collapsed into tears and had to recompose herself before she could explain what had upset her so much. Poor Destiny! Imagine finding out all in one afternoon that you couldn’t have your son attend your wedding because his father was remarrying the same week and then hearing that your own mother planned to attend his wedding! Steve was such a dear, he offered to move their wedding plans up but Destiny stood firm. Steve had picked the date for sentimental reasons. They planned their wedding on the same day he had proposed to her four years earlier. Everyone else be damned! This was her day and she wasn’t about to let anyone spoil it!

I know this all sounds a bit like a soap opera but I swear to you this is just the way it all happened. Destiny was devastated. Her mother had been causing her so much pain and grief lately. Since her son went to live with his father, Destiny’s mother had been a frequent guest in their home. Whenever she and Destiny discussed it she always used her grandson as an excuse for “fraternizing with the enemy” so to speak. A few months ago when Destiny went to meet them to drop off her daughter for visitation she was amazed to find that her mother was in the car with her ex husband and his girlfriend! Later her mother explained it was a way to spend more time with her grandkids and just to get out of the house. I saw how much it hurt Destiny even though she was happy to see her mother. A while after that her mother told her all about a trip she took with her ex son-in-law, his girlfriend and the children. Her ex delighted in sending pictures from the trip to their daughter. Leafing the pictures I was overwhelmed to see not only photos of the children with their grandmother but pictures of Destiny’s mother hugging her ex son-in-law and his girlfriend!

Steve urged Destiny to tell her mother how she felt about the “family” pictures and her plans to attend the wedding but she stubbornly refused. I don’t know if she just couldn’t bear to let her mother know how much she hurt her or if she truly meant what she said to me. “I’ve burned too many bridges in my life Carla”, she said. “If I say what I am thinking or tell how I feel I will just be burning one more. I’d rather let her think that I don’t give a damn what she does than to say something I might regret saying for the rest of my life. Once I start talking I won’t ever be able to take it back. She was telling me about her financial problems and I wanted to say, “Well you’re awfully chummy with your ex son-in-law why don’t you borrow the money from him? “ Or,” I sure hope he still loves you this much when you are no longer able to take care of yourself because I damn sure don’t plan to do it!” I just couldn’t bring myself to say anything hurtful or spiteful because as much as she is hurting me she is still my mother.” I would like to say that I am as generous a person as Destiny is. I’m not! If my mother EVER sided with my ex husband over me I swear I would tell them both to go straight to hell and enjoy each other! I can’t even imagine that a mother would do some of the things that she has done and profess to love their child.