Guest Blogger: Mindy C

My friend Mindy has been dealing with LIFE lately. She's too dang busy to actually get a blogger account, but she wanted me to post something on her behalf. What follows is a letter she sent to the people who love her after a particularly difficult time.

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Dearest Family and Friends,
I am writing to announce that our daughter Anna got married yesterday. I know this is very shocking, and certainly not what I imagined for my little girl's wedding. It is rather a long story, but I will try to be brief, and please feel free to ask me any questions.

Anna has had lots of problems for the past two or three years. Some of you know about this, but I will not go into details. Suffice it to say that not only did she have the normal teen-age trauma with school, boys, etc., but she has also increasingly been "butting heads" with Wayne and I over curfews, chores, and pretty much any 'control' issue you can think of. She has actually always been this way- back to her first nursing strike at age 7 months.

We had to force her through high school this past year, almost day by day. This had nothing to do with her academic capabilities, but rather her super-stubbornness. How else would you explain flunking and sleeping through most of her classes, yet miraculously getting an A in A.P. biology? But she did graduate last week.

The Monday after graduation, she went to spend the night at a girl-friend's house. The next night she spent with her boyfriend ( now husband) David. The next night she spent with him also, but they both showed up at our house at 4 in the morning because his roomate had kicked them out ( his name was not on the lease). Later that day, they were up and about (I was at work) and left again after finding a friend to stay with. She told us she would be home the next day (Thursday) for a doctor's appointment.

Thursday afternoon, I called her cell-phone to ask her if she was on her way, and she said she wasn't going. Refused to go. Refused to meet me there. refused to tell me where she was. Hung up on me. I was very upset, and went looking for her, and even talked with our sherrif. (At this point I need to mention that in the state of Nebraska, you are not an adult until age 19, not 18)

We didn't hear from her again until she talked to her brother Alex at 4:30AM friday morning. She told him then that she would be home "tomorrow". He asked her if that was friday or saturday, but she wouldn't answer him. Then we heard nothing from her. Her friends had heard nothing from her. Everybody was getting pretty upset, to say the least. Finally we heard a rumor that she and David were staying at a hotel downtown. So Sunday evening Alex and three of Anna's girlfriends went downtown and passed out her picture at every hotel.

When they came back from downtown, Wayne and I decided that there was no point in putting it off, and went to the sherrif's office to file a missing persons report. On our way there we got a call from one of the hotels saying that they had been there, but he said he could only give the details to the police. So we went and finished filing our the report. As we were leaving, she called my cell-phone to inform me that she was not missing or kidnapped, and we should not report her as missing. I tried to talk to her but she hung up again.

When we got home (1 AM on Memorial Day) we found that Alex had also talked to the hotel desk-clerk, and had gotten the name of the person who had rented the room for them. From this information, we were able to figure out where they were, and I called the house. I talked to David's friend's mother. I told her that Anna was only 18, and that there was a missing person report on her. I told her that I would not send the police to her house until the next day ( mainly because I was afraid they would run) but that she needed to tell Anna that she needed to be with her family, and that the missing person report would remain until I saw Anna with my own eyes.

Anna came home on monday evening, but made it clear she was leaving again. Wayne and I were very worried about never seeing her again, and also for her safety, since we didn't know David at all. When he came to pick her up on Tuesday morning, I decided this might be my only chance to get any information. David did not take kindly to the interregation (yeah, I was a tad bit hostile) and said to me why do you need all this stuff about me?

I yelled at him "So I can tell the police who to look for when they find my daughter face down in Hummel Park!!" (very sad Omaha murder case- the girl was found in Hummel Park) To which David said "Oh I understand...."

And I said "Do you have children? Then you don't know jack-shit. She's my baby, my only daughter!"

David said "I can assure you I would never let anything happen to Anna. I will take care of her."

"Do you want to marry her?"

"Well, yes, I'd like to......."

And I said " Well, you go get the papers, and I'll sign them" and I stormed back into the house. Then I broke down. I didn't know I could cry like that. I left to go meet Wayne where he was working, and had to take the back-roads because I was so distraught.

I pulled over twice to scream.

When I talked to Wayne, we decided that we didn't have much choice in this situation. She was going to leave home. If they lived together, she would not be able to have her name on the lease. If they broke up, we didn't know if she would come home. We were deathly afraid of never seeing her again. We decided that maybe getting married wasn't such a bad idea, if they would go for it. That way, she would immediately have legal status as an adult. And if things didn't work out for them, she would be "emancipated".

To our surprise, they jumped at the idea of getting married. We signed the consent, and they got married at the courthouse at 4:30 on May 31st ( yes, for those of you who keep track- this was also my son Alex's 21st birthday).

OK- believe it or not, I tried to be brief. And I'm too tired to write anymore, anyway ...

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Another note about Mindy. I used to work with her a few years back and we became friends between cubicles. On more than one occasion I have told Mindy that if I could pick a big sister it would be her. I would also like to point out that she is a phenomenal mom and friend.