I was a born Navy brat in Portsmouth Naval Hospital. I spent my first few years in Navy housing, and quite a few living in a Navy community. Most of my friends were Navy brats. I bought my clothes, my favorite music albums, and my Hardy Boys books at the Navy Exchange. I learned to swim in a Navy pool. I went bowling, and to the twenty five cent movies on base. Then one day it all changed.

I could name this part, this chapter, Fish out of Water (in more ways than one) because that is exactly what it felt like.
It didn't take long to realize that we came from a different world and that we would not fit into this small town.

We all have life defining moments, a moment that changes us and helps to make us who we are.. It may be for good, or for bad. We said yes to something when we should have said no. We stopped when we should have gone. We sat when we should have gotten up. Sometimes we run away from them. This is about one of those moments that happened to me. It was a moment in time when I got up.
You may choose not to believe what you read here, that is up to you. I will tell you this. It happened just the way I have written it.

This part of my family's past is very hard for me to write about. I guess I am afraid I run the risk of having people read this story and think I am crazy. It would not be he first time. Many people in our church, some close friends, and eventually our relatives, thought my whole family was crazy. Many believed we had "gone off the deep end."

Mom was now in the hospital and my question to God was “Where did that leave us?” I was left, full of despair, fear, and without my Mom.

Dad had to deal with his emotional truama as well.