Love
The first boy I ever loved...My Jacky-Joe.
When my brother Jack was born I was 14 and 1/2 years old. When my brother Jack was born I learned the power of a mother's love. Jack is my entire world. When I moved to Michigan I spent almost every day feeling as though a huge piece of me was missing. I am beyond grateful God chose me to be his big sister because without him I would have never known the type of love I expected from someone. My trauma and loss experiences have turned me into that girl who loves harder and feels more than anyone you'll ever meet; Jack showed me that type of love is rare and only the most perfect man is worthy. The perfect man understands and respects my relationship with my brothers, he wants a relationship with them independent of their relationship with me, he loves my brothers as much as he loves me. I would do anything for my brother, even though I did not carry him for 9 months and I've spent the last 4 years 800 miles away, he's still mine. And I am his. His sister and emotional support human. His best friend 'til the end.When I was in eighth grade people joked that Jack was mine, which for the daughter of a teen mom wasn't a fun experience, but I now realize their jokes are my reality. As he enters his eighth year of life and I watch him go from a little boy to a little man my heart hurts longing for the days when he was the sleepy baby in my arms and dread the days when he no longer wants my nighttime snuggles. No amount of breakups can change one simple fact: he was and always will be the first boy I ever loved. Unconditional, unbreakable love. And isn't that what we all strive for?
Step-Up
I bet no one expected the "love" section to include Grant. However, Grant was the first man my mom and I truly let into our hearts after losing my father and being abandoned by Jack's dad. He went from the man who worked for my grandpa to the man who will be asked by the man who seeks to take my hand in marriage. Someday Grant will be my kids' Grant-pa alongside my mom and their Gr-Annie.
I'm super grateful the universe brought him into our lives and I'm super proud of the person he has become as he has stepped up as Jack's dad.
(12/26/2015)
Hello everyone, for those of you who don’t know me I’m the maid of honor and daughter of the beautiful bride who sits here beside me. I’d like to thank you all for coming and sharing in this happy occasion, I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas yesterday. So to the bride, Mrs. Ann Marie Drewel, MOM. I’m so happy for you. Out of anyone in this world you deserve the most happiness. Our family has experienced loss, but aside from all of the loss and pain you have experienced, you have remained the strongest person I know. I can’t thank you enough for being a great mom to Jack and I, and for keeping our little family of three mellow yellow. Love just happens. And now it happened for you!
Now, my mom had been talking about Grant since he started working with my Grandpa. She would joke to Jeannine and I about how he was her “work boyfriend”. Finally after three years, they went on a date. A blues game, which if you know my mom meant she needed a new blue coat, yellow gloves, and some really cute jeans! I had never seen her so nervous. After a few weeks, it was time for Grant to meet me, I wasn’t nervous. Okay I was, I had my boyfriend Anthony come over just to make it a bit less awkward. That sure was a fun night, we played board games, I sang Christmas songs, and I realized Grant was the one for my mom.
Grant is someone who for lack of better words, puts up with me. It seems no matter what I say Grant always has a witty comeback, and he’s the only person I know who can humorously put me in my place without hurting my feelings. He asked my mom once, “If Alexis didn’t like me would we break up?” and she told him Yes. Well I guess you’re lucky then, because I like you! We love you. This entire family loves you more than you could ever know. And we are so happy for you to be a part of it.
SO,
When someone asks about “Oh, your mom’s getting married, Do you like him?” my response is “Yeah! He’s really good with Jack so that’s nice.” On Wednesday I was at an appointment and a woman asked me that question, but we kept talking and we got onto the topic of my dad passing away when I was three, which is something I have been talking about for 84% of my life. And she said “Doesn’t it make you sad to say that you don’t have a dad?” and I explained that I’ve been talking about his passing for years, and that I couldn’t imagine what losing a parent at this junction in my life would feel like. Mom, now you can’t say that I “Don’t have a dad” because now I do. Jack and I both have a Mommy and a Didi and I could not be happier. It's an extraordinary thing to meet someone who you can bare your soul to. And who will accept you for what you are. Mom, you have been waiting, what seems like a very long time, to find someone who makes you as happy as you are right now. And with Grant, I feel like I can finally leave you when I go off to college. So I'd like to propose a toast to my beautiful mom, who raised me to have a thick skin and roll with the punches life throws and to the man who rolls with the punches we throw at him. Congratulations. I love you.
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(3/17/2021)
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Since that beautiful wedding day, a lot has changed. I went from being a resistant step-daughter who pushes away any potential paternal figure that isn’t my own to someone who trusts her step-dad to beat her boyfriend’s face into the ground if he breaks her heart. It’s been hard for all of us watching Jack, my eight-year-old brother, struggle with going between households when he truly sees Grant as his strongest paternal figure. I think Jack’s relationship with Grant, or D-D, made me realize that you don’t need biology to be someone’s child.
Tim Mcgraw does not have a Christmas album, in his entire career he’s only released singles. This year he released a rendition of “It Wasn’t His Child”, which alludes to Joseph raising Jesus as his own. I jokingly said to Matthew, “Ha, it’s Grant!”, but it wasn’t a joke, Grant had stepped up for both me and my brother.
My brother’s biological father, if you could even call him that, started stressing Grant’s role as a “step-parent” a few years ago and it really bothered my mom. I understood this irritation, but I also began to consider the true meaning of a step parent; they step up. They step up to the plate when the bio-parent doesn’t, they choose to be the figure you can rely on, the person who will protect you. In the past few years Grant has come to offer to adopt me, to harm boys who have hurt my feelings, and to always take care of my mom. That’s all you can really ask for in a step-dad.
Through Him
Matthew, 24 year old white male, originally from a suburb of St. Louis, received his undergraduate degree in rural Rolla Missouri, was now living in Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love to complete his PhD in Chemical Engineering. He was an only child of two parents who worked hard, saved, and would soon retire comfortably to Florida. He was smarter than he would ever give himself credit for. He had been hurt by a lot of people in his life, physically and mentally. He had been betrayed by people too. That’s why when he met Alexis he connected with her. They had shared experiences, similar yet different. Victims of bullying, cheating. The connection between them was undeniable, but it was reinforced by their shared experience of presenting “fine” when in reality they weren’t fine at all.
With Him
He walked into the cafe, closed off to the world under his golden hoodie, clearly from his high school basketball days. But he wasn’t closed off to her. There she was, in her cropped baby blue knit sweater and cowgirl ankle boots rushing him like a defensive lineman. It was like there was no air in the room, as he felt a slight breeze across his body as she stormed by. “Let’s go” she ordered, taking the lead to his truck. She's it, He thought to himself. “Where’s your truck?” she asked; “right over to the left” he responded as he went to help her into the passenger side, not wanting her to slip on the icy runner. “I got it.” she said as she hoisted herself into the truck. Yep, definitely it. he thought again.
Excerpt from “Through Him, With Him, In Him”
Matt and I hangout twice that day, once in the morning and once in the evening. We had sex again, this time in his bedroom. I noticed the pictures of him on his bedside table, his knife collection, the old westerns on his bookshelf, and the way he giggled when I breathed on his neck.
We were sitting at his kitchen table drinking beers talking about who we knew from our respective experiences in private-catholic St. Louis school. He told me about his first high school love and betrayal. He asked if I wanted to go to Anheuser Busch Brewery downtown to see the Christmas Lights with him, his friends, and his friend’s girlfriend. I was shocked. “I’ll have to see what I have going on, but it’s getting late I should get home”. I was really starting to like him. Ugh! He was a hometown hookup, I’d be back in Ann Arbor in 3 weeks, there’s no way this kid wanted to date me, was there? He drove me home and asked me about some of my favorite bands, I told him I loved the Grateful Dead. “Oh! I have a grateful dead CD in here somewhere I’ve been meaning to listen to!” Jesus Christ, Was he fucking serious?
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So, I did it. I went out with his friends. Not once, but twice. We were walking through the Christmas Lights at the Botanical Gardens on our double date with Kelsey and Curtis when he told me how small his family holidays were; just his mom, his dad, and his grandparents. In the years prior, he had spent Christmas Eve with a female family friend, but wasn’t going to this year. I’m from a large, German-Catholic family that spends every Christmas Eve together. In recent years we established the ugly sweater, appetizers, and white elephant traditions making our Christmas Eve fun, casual, and new-friend friendly. My uncle was bringing his colleague from Korea, so I thought bringing my “friend” Matt would be no big deal and I invited him. He was brave to come to Christmas Eve and meet my family of 18 loud, aggressive, Catholics. I watched him talk attentively with patience to my grandpa; unfazed by his ALS SUCKS Socks, wheelchair, and breathing machine. I watched him interact with my pre-teen and tween cousins and my little brothers; unfazed by nerf darts and giggly teasing. He had his arm around or on me all night. My cousin Isabelle got a Nikon Camera for Christmas and there’s a video of Matt and I looking at each other and there it was, on film, the look.
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He invited me to Christmas Day with his family, don’t forget: it was just his mom, his dad, and his grandparents. I should have seen where this was going, but I ignored it; I was living in the moment. “Matthew, will you grab that for me?” His family called him “Matthew”, I loved it. “Matthew Joseph”, so Catholic. So wholesome. So pure. We went to my cousin Emily’s indoor soccer game together; he was brave to face this branch of the Vatterott Family Tree. My Uncle and God-father was a tough cookie to crack, but Matt was dead set on making a continued good impression in the most Catholic way: by buying him beer at his daughter’s soccer game.
Things were going so well and happening so fast. After the soccer game we were laying in my bed together. He looked at me and said “So how would you feel if we were maybe dating when you went back to school?” I was shocked. I didn’t know what to say so I said “I just need to think about it.”
I texted my cousin Emily the next day that he asked me to be his girlfriend. She told me she liked him better than my last two boyfriends and he looked like Captain America, so why hadn’t I said yes yet? So logically, I listened to the 14-year-old girl’s opinion and said yes.
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We were laying in my bed, lights on, listening to music. “Let me show you this song, it’s from the movie American Psycho”
YouTube: Sussudio Phil Collins SEARCH
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“I used to listen to this song all the time, to the point where I got sick of it.”
I listened as Phil Collins sang about the girl he needed his whole life and watched a compilation of movie scenes flash across his phone screen. He leaned in and kissed me, just like that we were making out to the song I play at full volume in my car whenever the distance gets too hard.
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Matthew called me on my birthday two weeks ago to sing me happy birthday. My grandpa, who lost his battle to ALS over the summer, used to call every year to sing. This is why I loved Matthew. He held my hand at my grandpa’s funeral in June and he took the time to honor his memory on my birthday. He's my emotional support human. He’s the one.
Matthew Joseph is now the boy I hope to marry because he respects me, he changed my perception of sexuality, and made me feel like I wasn’t alone in my complex relationship to my faith. He challenges me to be my own person, to solve my own problems, to trust and have faith, and most importantly to love myself. He also checks all the boxes. It’s funny how we started, how I always seem to think I know what’s to come before it is revealed I actually know very little about the future.
Through him, I learned how to be independent and autonomous while in a romantic relationship.
With him, we confronted our virginity complexes and the complexity that is Catholic sexuality.
In him, I saw someone I prayed for as a little girl.
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It took me a long time to romanticize my future with Matthew. I told myself I wasn’t going to do that this time. I wasn’t going to put all my eggs in his basket. I was going to see where it went, not worry, trust in God’s plan. If we were meant to be we would be.
Little Things
I’ve never been able to remember my car rides with Matthew. I think it’s because I’ve felt so safe with him from the beginning. What’s ironic is that the safety I felt decreased as my emotional bond and commitment to him increased. Still, the closer he gets to my heart the more scared I get of losing him suddenly. That fear, the fear of losing, that’s what comes with knowing loss well.
“Do you guys want to go get ice cream”, Kelsey asked, as we were finishing our journey amongst the Christmas Lights at the St. Louis Botanical Garden. I remembered how Matthew told me he could eat multiple pints of ice cream in one sitting and knew “Yes.” Was the obvious answer. We went to Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, which anyone from St. Louis knows is a classic city go-to. As we stood in line in the cold he asked me what I wanted, Strawberries & Chocolate, I thought, “I don’t know, I’m gonna look, What do you want?”, I said instead. “I think I’m going to get that chocolate-covered strawberry sundae”, he responded. I unironically ordered the same. We stood with Curtis and Kelsey eating our respective ice creams, when Curtis asked “So what’d you two get?”, “We both got that strawberry chocolate sundae” Matthew responded, “Wow, you two really are the same person”, Curtis responded. This had been a running joke between Matthew and I. It would take over a year for me to see the irony in ordering Strawberry Ice Cream on one of my first dates, when it was the only memory of my dad, and when in the past I had lied about hating all fruit-related ice creams.
Learn
And as he looks up words in that transport phenomena textbook; as he prepares for his chemical engineering PhD, I can't help but be attracted to him. His dry hands. His flippant remarks, The way he touches me and the way he looks in my eyes. The way he gets lost in his work. There's something so comforting. Something so attractive. Something I can actually respect about someone who's so dedicated. Who’s so sure. Even when he’s unsure, he seems sure, and that’s all I can ask for in an equal partner. We’re imperfect; and I think we both think we’ll be peaking when we have middle-childhood children.. but in an alternate reality I think we were together from start to finish. In some reality, somewhere, there’s a version of me who met Matthew before all the bad stuff happened, who fell in love at the right moment, who saved each other from the detrimental effects of entering adulthood with unresolved childhood adversity. Maybe that’s the reason emerging adulthood exists as a construct or theoretical developmental time point; to resolve this in-between, a feeling of loss that so many of us feel as we make mistakes throughout our 20s.
As she walked through the biting morning air, watching her footing so not to slip. The tiniest of snowflakes hit her face as she remembered this day the year before: waking up at 2:30 am to sit in line for basketball wristbands for her best friends and her new boyfriend who was visiting for the weekend. That game was anxiety inducing at first, as she feared running into her ex-boyfriend with her current boyfriend (an upgrade on all fronts). Matthew was a man of many mysteries, but one thing was obvious: he loved basketball. He wasn’t there to get on TV or participate in the Maize Rage fan experience, he was there to take in the art of a game he loved, court-side. After half time he pulled her close in his arms, putting his chin atop the crown of her head and squeezing her shoulders with his biceps this is how forever feels, she thought. After a nap they made plans for dinner. As she got ready in her bathroom she looked over at him on the bed and she felt it.
The Price of Love is...
LOSS
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When I lost my grandpa to ALS I lost all ability to give a fuck about Valentine’s Day. With his diagnosis coming prior to my freshman year of college, it made it easy to ignore the fact that due to his terminal illness he would no longer be able to bring my aunt, my mom, myself, and my 4 cousins roses on Valentine’s Day. This was a tradition that started when I was born. A singular red rose. Despite this, 2021 is the first Valentine’s Day where he is truly gone.
It is February 13, 2021 and I’m walking into a market in Philadelphia. Nothing new to me compared to the anxiety inducing markets I entered in Uganda. As I entered the market with my boyfriend and his PhD colleague, I noticed a man leaving with 2 children between the ages of 8 and 12 with a bouquet of flowers,
“Oh, look how sweet, everyone’s going to be getting flowers for Valentine’s Day, tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day?”, my boyfriend responded.
I just rolled my eyes as he blankly said he didn’t know what day it was despite telling me it was February 12th the night prior. We walked through the glass doors as we put on the gloves his colleague had brought for us (to protect us from COVDI-19) and were faced with the florist’s booth, Perfect, I thought.
“Pick out some flowers for yourself”, he said as I rolled my eyes, assuming he was joking.
“I’m serious.” He said as we continued walking around the market.
At this point, I’d wished I had taken control of this adventure into the city.
We circled back to the florist.
The basic bouquets were ugly, and the bouquet of 12 roses and baby’s breath wasn’t going to do it for me as a former florist’s daughter.
“How about a single rose?” Matthew asked,
“Who are you Ralph Vatterott?”, and in that moment I was transported to a memory of yesterday when he was going on about how his parents had bought him multiple packets of engineering paper, paper I had only ever seen used by my grandpa. I thought back to how in that moment the night before, as I dissociated, he asked me “What?” and I responded “Nothing” and told some lie about how I was thinking about something else, when really I was thinking of how much I missed my grandpa and how grateful I was to have stumbled upon an engineer in time to meet him before his death, because that’s what mattered most to me: that the boy I marry meet my grandpa and receive his stamp of approval.
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No boy had before, and there’s no way of knowing if Matthew had it, but at least they had engineering in common. However, they did have one stark difference: internalizing vs. externalizing behavior. My grandfather was expressive, he wrote beautiful love letters to my grandmother on every major occasion, he always had extravagant gifts, grand gestures. He was the externalizer, the extrovert. Matthew on the other hand is a bit more cynical, emotionally unaware even, and constantly internalizing like his introverted only-child self. Even so, as I sit in Philadelphia after spending $300 on travel, $75 on gifts, and who knows how much on lingerie and effort only to watch my boyfriend attempt to keep-up with Masters in Chemical Engineering students as an undergraduate Chemist, I think of my grandpa, and the expectation he set for men in my life, and how despite my boyfriend’s lack of ability to be expressive, he checked all the other boxes, and all the signs were there. I guess that’s the thing about grief, with grief.. you are forced to find meaning in darkness, in loss.. and when you experience grief from early childhood into adulthood, losing the men who are supposed to provide the framework for what love and relationships should be like. Despite my acknowledgement that my grandfather, and my father for that matter, were flawed and imperfect people, in the eyes of a little girl or an emerging adult who lost them before she was ready, they were everything. And they left a lot to be unsaid. My dad left a lot to be unsaid about what a loving “A&B relationship”—as my mom would call it— between parents is supposed to look like. My grandpa left a lot unsaid about how I’m supposed to know when he’s the right one.
I’ve never been one to trust my own judgement, not in relationships (look where that got me: abused, heartbroken, lost), not in higher education (my mom and a “feeling” is the reason I’m at ‘the best university in – the – world), not even to choose where I want to eat for a meal at any given time (I’ll overthink to the point of just not eating). I always said that when a man felt it was appropriate to ask for my hand in marriage, he’d need the blessing of my grandpa and my mom, it was only right. Now, I have been grateful enough to know my grandfather trusted my stepfather enough with my mom and my brothers, that he also trusted him with his blessing. However, if I don’t end up with Matt, that would really blow.
I picked out lilies and hydrangeas, my favorite. I cringed inside as Matthew was ripped off by the city’s inflation on dying flowers. Nevertheless, I went home and arranged the flowers in the vase he bought without thinking anything of it. Maybe I could’ve been more appreciative. Maybe I could’ve not lost myself in my head as I worried about the future, my honors thesis, and my writing capstone on top of my coursework that I enrolled in to have a “fun” last semester at Michigan that probably wasn’t even my last semester thanks to Clinical Psychology Programs becoming even more competitive than they already were prior. But as I sit here, on the night before Valentine’s Day, when all through the apartment, not a creature is stirring, except Matthew and the Chemical Engineering Department.
Like I said at the beginning, when he died I stopped caring…. About my birthday, Thanksgiving, Valentine’s Day; Yet as all of this hurt and grief hit me like a tidal wave, I remembered how strong I was. Alexis, you are brave. I’d fallen in love; this wasn’t something I could deny, I just continued to wonder “Is this the right guy?”. They say you’re supposed to marry someone like your father, but when you’ve lost yours and the next best thing, why even bother? Does Strawberry ice cream and a comment at a market make up for not knowing how to find a model of my Papa and Grandpa’s incarnate? I really don’t know, and I really don’t care. What matters to me now is that he’ll always be there. Come hell or high water, grief, stress, or doubt… I know that Matthew will be there, that I have no doubt. He’s steadfast and true, he’s the one that I love. He’s the prince I used to wish for, the boy I’d only dreamed of. When I was little I’d wish on stars, I’d even buy those little trinket wishing jars. I’d wish for a prince to save me and take me away, from all the pain and the hurt, someone who’d let me forget where I’d been and stay. This wasn’t what I needed, while I thought it’d be a dream come true. What I needed was him, what I needed was Matthew. Someone logical, calculated, and healthy. Even if the lessons he taught me were stealthy. Despite all the time I spent worrying with my doubt, I know in reality he’s someone I couldn’t live without. He’s focused, he’s driven, he’s honest, he’s true. Funny thing is, he’s a lot like the Ralph Vatterott I knew. The man who stepped up when my dad couldn’t stay. The man who was there when all other men ran away. The man who brought me a single rose every Valentine’s day. And the man I hope and I pray would say, “I give you my blessing, he’s really the guy. Trust me, he’ll stay, don’t worry, don’t cry”. I love him so much and that’s what makes it scary. All the signs are there, which makes me even more wary. That’s how it works with trauma and loss, even when you’re happy, you become consumed by your thoughts. Your brain works against you, thinks you into a mess; it’s awful, it hurts, it’s traumatic distress. To love after loss is a brave thing to do, it’s not easy, it’s hard, only conquered by a few. Because when you are smart you realize one thing, there is no love without loss, even eventually the angels will sing. I constantly wonder when he’s going to die, when he’s going to run, when his well will run dry. Everyone tells me he’s right, he’s true, the only one who seems unable to see that is you. It’s not a lack of feelings, or a lack of confidence. It’s my past, my fear of losing, that makes me so tense. I wish I could stop it, I wish that I knew. Oh I hope that he can do it, like in The Taming of The Shrew. Here I sit in the city of brotherly love, worried about the man I thought I could only ever dream of. Like I said, Valentine’s Day doesn’t mean shit to me, it’s just a reminder of a sweet but wounded memory.
“How are things with you and Matt?”, Audrey inquired as they caught up for the first time in 2 months; “Things are good.. I can’t really put it into words.. He’s just a solid constant in my life”
Alexis began to ponder what this feeling was… Had she never been in love before? Did she not know what true love was? Why was she so uncomfortable in the safety and reassurance of the two of them working out? She had begged him for this type of validation early on in their relationship, now that she had it why couldn’t she accept it? Who was to blame for this? Why couldn’t she just be happy?
She turned to her friend Dan in a post-study hangout with this dilemma. He looked at her and said “Do you know what the Catholic definition of love is?”, she shook her head no, he nodded, “love in Christianity is the giving of yourself for the betterment of another; charity.” As he said this Alexis thought back to why she was initially attracted to Matthew: he was Catholic. He understood marriage meant you wake up every day and choose each other and he volunteered with special needs youth the majority of his adolescent and emerging adult life. “Charity, huh. I mean and when you think about it, the entire concept of the holy spirit is that Jesus is always with you even though you can’t see his physical body, which is pretty much what Matt is for me. It doesn’t matter what happens, he’s gonna be there.”
I always knew you could fall in love with a person, but I never knew you could fall in love with a place. I came to the University of Michigan for the trifecta: school, sports, and a social life. As my undergraduate journey comes to a close I recognize I got everything I wanted out of my college experience and then some. I got my life-long friends, I got my Greek-Life Love story, I lost myself, I found myself, I hurt, I healed, and I will forever be changed by my time in Ann Arbor, for the better. Now, as I embark on my new journey in the field of Social Work I am doing so confident in my abilities, no longer overwhelmed by imposter syndrome, anxiety, and the horror of feeling "not-enough".
Despite my habit of brushing off my accomplishments, hating the words "I'm proud of you" and "Great Job!", and my constant feeling of perfection as an expectation I know that receiving my B.A. in Psychology with a Minor in Writing from THE BEST UNIVERSITY IN THE WORLD is something to celebrate. I did it! The accidental teen pregnancy, the toddler who experienced traumatic parental loss, the girl with more concussions than you can count on one hand, the pre-teen who became a co-parent through her infant brother's abandonment, the teenager who survived a tractor trailer accident, the college student who was abused by her boyfriend throughout high school and college, the emerging adult who watched her favorite person slowly die of a terminal illness, the young woman who constantly remains the outlier in so many negative statistics did it! How? One word: Resilience.
Resilience inherent to my being. Every day I wakeup and I take a walk through the suburbs near central campus in Ann Arbor and as I do so I often think about all the darkness I've experienced and I often wonder why I keep going, why I keep getting out of bed, and there's really only one answer: I have no choice, too many people need me to be my best self. Being resilient by definition means you must first face adversity, I don't think survivors of complex trauma really stop facing adversity because every day is a battle. However, I think the love of and for people and places that bring joy to our lives is what propels us to keep on keepin' on as my mom would say.
My mom always wanted to come to the University of Michigan, I threw the big envelope acceptance to the side when it came "Pft, I'm not going there", but now I know this was the best decision I ever made. I got my "I got in!" moment four years later with a voicemail from the University of Michigan School of Social Work accepting me into the MSW program and as I wept with joy I felt as though I came full circle. Thank you to the people who got me here, the people who I met here, and the people who will continue to be apart of my life as I continue my journey here, in Ann Arbor.
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Forever and Always,
Go Blue.