I t was the end of the bus rides, as the day had been long. Fifteen hours of bus rides after graduating in my Alphas earlier that day. Then Fifteen hours on buses to get to my first assigned base. Too, I'd been careful not to soil any pressed and shined part of me. So, to be sat, I'd refrained from food and beverage for nearly a day. It was my last bus ride. As I'd sat alone with the bus driver in the dark bus for a while. A nice black man was the bus driver. He'd made conversation at the right time for me. As he'd read me well. "So, I'm just gonna' let you know. They'll be these Marines I'm picking up from Court Street, ma'am. They'll be a little drunk. It'll be okay." Not knowing exactly what he'd inferred. "Okay. Thank you, Sir." I'd not been asleep coming on 24 hours. Yet I was well-aware and wide awake. A feeling of the unknown I'd had, as those Marines in civilian attire loaded up from Court Stre...
It s funny how we deem what is safe, secure, doable. I knew by age eight that I had no saving grace. My parents were merely human. My dad was not going to rescue me under most circumstances. Would he try? I wanted to think so. Yet back then, understanding how fallible we were as human beings; I accepted the fact that when push came to shove, the truth was I was alone even then in this world. I had to become my own saving grace. My own hero. And if I could be there for someone else, then I would. Many decades later in 2008, as I'd attempted to race at the U.S. National 24-Hour Championships in Texas, this while still bleeding out just a few days after a burst ovarian cyst put me onto our toilet back and forth with dry heaves included. Then put me onto a floor sideways. That was only after I'd gotten our children's lunches made and packed. Cooked and served them breakfast bent in half. Telling them, "Mom just doesn't feel too good. Its okay." I'd paused. ...