I wasn’t really going to do it, was I? I’d opened the StubHub app just to look, to see what prices looked like, just like I’d done a few dozen times since Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour tickets went on sale. But now, with less than a week to go until the show, I was running out of time.
No, a 41-year-old man, a grandfather no less, should not, under any circumstances, be buying an expensive ticket to go, by himself, to see the Taylor Swift Era Tour.
I tried to conscript my daughters into going with me. My daughter, Jasmine, who introduced me to Taylor Swift’s music, felt like a large crowd with any number of germs she might bring home to her newborn didn’t sound worth it. Keyrra, the other daughter who had expressed an interest, was now 6 months pregnant and just the thought of fighting through crowds and standing for several hours made her want to take a nap. My other daughter, Katieanna might have been interested if we were going to see Dance Gavin Dance.
If I was going to go see Taylor Swift, I would have to own it. I was buying the ticket for me. And each time I opened the app to look at prices, I didn’t think I could do that.
“My name is Lucas and I’m an alcoholic.” I jokingly said those words quite a few times on drunken nights after spending too much money and staying too late at a bar. But in 2011 I said them and meant it.
This wasn’t my first AA meeting. I’d completed 20 court ordered meetings and not said those words. You don’t have to unless you’re going to share and I was not going to share under any circumstances. I wasn’t an alcoholic. And I knew that because my dad was an alcoholic and I knew that because I saw my dad drunkenly bouncing off the walls when I was a kid. My children had never seen me drunk. So I was fine. The whole thing with the courts was a big misunderstanding. Well, three big misunderstandings. I mean I wasn’t even driving when I got my third DUI, I was sleeping in my car. That sounded damn near responsible to me.
But on April 12th, 2011, when I finished my last court ordered meeting, I decided to celebrate. I invited a buddy of mine out for a drink. In AA meetings they tell you you’re not an alcoholic if you can go out and have one drink, because an alcoholic needs to have twenty if they have one. So, I was going to show them, I was going to have one or two, maybe three at the most. The next day my oldest set of twins, Katieanna and Keyrra were turning twelve. Of course, I wouldn’t go crazy, I still needed to get them a gift.
The night ended around 6:30 AM with the sun coming up over Las Vegas. Not only was I extremely drunk, but my ex-wife was leaving for work in 30 minutes and I promised to watch the kids. I hadn’t gotten a gift. And now I couldn’t. My bank account was overdrawn.
Almost nothing ever felt worse than the look of hope I saw on their faces slowly melt to disappointment as I passed out on the couch. They had a couple of friends over that they were excited for me to meet, but I spent the day drunk and hungover, half conscious. When my ex-wife, who always believed in me, came home she was upset. I told her I would get it together. Without looking at me she said, “I’m tired of hearing that.”
The next day, I went to my first real AA meeting, and with the desperation of rock bottom, I announced who I really was: “My name is Lucas and I’m an alcoholic.”
Over the following weeks I worked on improving my relationship with my children and working through the steps of AA. I started going over every morning to help them get ready. My kids liked to play music videos as they had breakfast and one morning the video for “The Story of Us” came on. It immediately caught my attention. First, because I love stories, second because it was a really good song, and third, let’s face it, if you have an ounce of testosterone in your body, she is going to catch your eye.
In the car the kids would argue over who got to be the DJ. During that time whenever Jasmine took over it meant I’d hear Taylor. At first I pretended not to like it. Who is Taylor Swift anyway? But, every ride, as we listened, songs like “Mean”, “Speak Now” and “Back to December” stuck with me in a way that I was a little scared to admit. I eventually added the album to my own library. You know, for Jasmine.
And then I listened on my own, on my way to AA meetings, on my way to a job interview with an old friend of mine, on my way to my first day when I was hired as a financial advisor again, reclaiming my career. Speak Now became the soundtrack of me coming back to life.
Over the next few years every album felt like it was telling my story. Red came out as I was going through an intense, crazy, exciting, passionate and ultimately self-destructive relationship, the first of my sobriety. 1989 was the soundtrack to the pieces falling into place as I sped down the neon-lit streets of Las Vegas in my brand new BMW. When I hit a point that the growing income, the success that lost meaning and the lack of any sort of genuine relationships became a burden, she released Reputation, her darkest album. And Lover came out almost a year to the day after my future wife Michelle moved in.
But folklore … well, folklore changed everything.
On July 23rd, 2020, Taylor Swift announced she was releasing folklore. We wouldn’t have to wait long either, it was coming out the very next day. Since every other album felt like a roadmap to my life, I desperately hoped this one would be as well. I needed one.
In March, right as lockdowns first came down, my mother called me to tell me Lyn, my stepfather, was going into the hospital. At first, I didn’t think much of it. Lyn was resilient. In the time that I’d known him, he’d gone through two bouts of prostate cancer, one bout of aggressive colon cancer, a heart attack and a blood disorder, and I still felt like he could outwork me, even though he was 86. Lyn was my hero.
There are two distinct versions of my childhood, the one before Lyn and the one after. After Lyn, I had someone to shoot hoops with and someone who played catch with me in the backyard after work. I had someone who challenged me, who believed in me, who supported me and still loved me even after I wrecked a car he’d spent a year restoring. I had someone to drive me to basketball practice and someone I’d play golf with in the summer because he and I were the only ones that wanted to play in the 110 degree Tucson heat. He was simultaneously the toughest and kindest man I’d ever known. When I became a young parent, my only wish was that I could be like him.
So when he first got sick, I brushed it off. Heroes don’t die. But each passing week brought a new story of a new hospitalization and worsening symptoms. In May, he called me to let me know he wasn’t going to seek any more treatment. He wanted to go into hospice. This was real.
I took my family to say goodbye in June. We were both tough guys, so we never told each other we loved each other. Until that day. Through tears, as we said goodbye for the last time, I told him, and without hesitation he said it back.
My son, Adonis, asked him for advice and recorded him. He said, “Be kind always to everybody, don’t make selections about who to be kind to. Try to be happy as much as you possibly can and always try to do the things somebody would like you to do. That’s my advice to you. If you do that, you’ll be one of the best people in the world. You try that out and have a good life.”
We thought he was going to be gone in a few weeks. His condition worsened. From the calls with my mother, each day sounded like it couldn’t get any worse, that the only logical next step would be for him to pass away. But he didn’t.
The calls grew dark. At times it sounded as if she was angry at him. She would complain about having to change his diapers or feed him. She expressed frustration that he kept eating, that he wasn’t gone yet. It’s complicated, I thought, to lose someone that close. She is just going through a really hard time.
After one such call, on the afternoon of July 24th, I took some LSD and listened to folklore.
I’d started experimenting with psychedelics that summer. As things got worse for Lyn, my son recommended I try some mushrooms. I was hesitant because of my experience with addiction. I didn’t want to start down that same path again. But I also felt an intense pull, like it was a rabbit hole I needed to go down.
I received two takeaways from my first experience: one sounded difficult, the other sounded impossible. The difficult one was that I needed to confront the death of my stepfather. The impossible one was that I needed to deal with my childhood. I didn’t think I could do that and I had a visceral feeling of terror at the thought.
As the summer wore on and Lyn got worse I kept experimenting both with mushrooms and LSD. There were magic moments where I felt released from a kind of prison I seemed to keep myself in, but it always returned when I came down. Each experience seemed to help free me little by little and more and more of the experience remained when I returned to the real world. I was more in touch with my emotions and my relationships improved. Michelle was happier. So, I kept going.
Listening to folklore for the first time that July afternoon led to the most intense, scary and beautiful psychedelic experience I’ve ever had. Every song felt as if I was entering a new world, with mythical figures, sweeping landscapes, and castles on the ocean. During the song epiphany*, it culminated in a vison of me as my step-father, feeling weak and scared with my mother looking over me. I felt afraid to live and afraid to die. Then it all turned black and I was guided toward an intense white light. It pulled me in, and I was surrounded by what I can only describe as pure love. And then it ended, right as the song did. The visions were over. I knew I had to go see my stepfather one more time.
I called my mother the next morning and insisted on coming. She told me I couldn’t, that she didn’t think I’d make it in time and that it wasn’t worth it. I kept pushing, but she pushed harder and I relented. I figured if I am supposed to go down there then somehow it will happen. A little over a week later, on a Monday, she said I could come, but it would have to be that week. I cancelled all my meetings and drove down the next morning.
Halfway there, she called me and told me he’d rolled off the bed and hit his head on the nightstand. She told me she didn’t think he would even be conscious. I told her I would come anyway. When I walked in the door she said it was a miracle, that he’d just come to.
I was surprised by how immobile he was. His legs were bent and locked; he couldn’t extend them. He had a hard time lifting a pillow. He was incredibly thin and frail. He didn’t seem capable of rolling over.
I sat with him for the next two days. He couldn’t say much, so sometimes I’d talk. Sometimes I just listened to the sound of the beeps and mechanical air hissing out of the oxygen tanks. I’d rub his arm or hold his hand. He told me it felt good. His skin felt thin and fragile.
I told him about butterflies. See the thing about butterflies is that when they go into a cocoon, they don’t grow wings. They dissolve. Every cell in their bodies is rearranged. When they emerge, they are like a new being. But, scientists have trained caterpillars to avoid certain smells, and when they turn into a butterfly, they still remember to avoid it. Their brains have been completely rebuilt, but somehow they remember. I told him that’s how you know you have a soul.
The morning I left, I noticed my mother taking a long time to get his food ready. He became irritated. My mother got irritated right back and seemed to go even slower. As she gave him coffee, she spilled it down the front of his shirt and he got more upset. I tried to tell him it would be okay and calm her down. I felt scared leaving them alone.
But I did. As, I was getting ready to leave he told me to have a good trip. I told him to have a good trip too. He asked me where he was going, and I told him “Everywhere.” He said, “That sounds great!”.
A few days later, he made my mother call me to tell me that he was going to wear his orange shirt on his trip. I didn’t know what it meant, but I told him that was fine. Two days later, on August 18th, he died.
That afternoon, I took some mushrooms. I learned that when you take a psychedelic, you should set an intention, and my intention was I wanted to see Lyn.
That night there was an intensely orange sunset over Las Vegas. I sat out all night, feeling his presence. I saw shapes in the clouds that reminded me of him. Once the sun was down, a dust storm kicked up and covered the city, creating an orange glow. Three days after that, when I opened up my headspace app, they had started a new video series and the first one was “The story of a butterfly,” and featured a bright orange monarch butterfly.
I have a dozen drafts on my hard drive where I’ve told a version of that story. At the time I thought whatever journey I’d started with my psychedelic folklore experience was over. But there was something nagging at me, telling me I had to keep going. And with every flash of orange in my day to day, a strange orange cabinet appearing in my office, a man biking past my office in an orange turban, an orange VW bug (his favorite kind of car) suddenly appearing at my gym and the intense orange sunsets on the days I really needed it, I felt like Lyn was guiding me.
In December of 2020, Taylor released her follow up to folklore, evermore. On the cover she wore an orange, plaid jacket.
The album was darker and sad. It confused me. And it reminded me of my mother. My relationship with her was collapsing. She demanded money from me and wouldn’t accept it when I told her about the strain it was putting on my finances.
She would project her pain on to me. She told me she thought Lyn would still be here if it wasn’t for me. She suggested that because I encouraged him to go, she was all alone. I felt like I was collapsing under the stress.
I continued searching for answers with psychedelics. I didn’t think Lyn had brought me all this way to fall to pieces now. There had to be something more. But this prison I kept coming back to, it was something inside of me, like a black box sealed shut. It haunted me. What was it? How could I feel the connectedness I felt on psychedelics when I wasn’t?
One night, after working through a spiritual program that both questioned and challenged the idea of forgiveness, I sat with it, feeling the black box weigh heavy on my mind. I couldn’t forgive myself. I couldn’t forgive myself because of something with my mom. And I couldn’t forgive my mom. But why?
She knew about the asthma.
I was diagnosed with asthma when I was around 5 or 6 years old. It was so severe that I underwent an allergy test when I was 7 that involved drilling 30 tiny holes in my back and filling them with allergens to see which reacted. I was prescribed a set of three allergy injections per week. I was on several oral medications, including an oral steroid. I had two inhalers and had to take three nebulizer treatments a day.
But the problem was I was faking. I faked every single one of my asthma attacks other than the first one. After years of unnecessary medical procedures my primary care doctor finally caught on and during an appointment gave me a shot of adrenaline and said the whole thing was very fishy. After that it stopped.
A few weeks later, overwhelmed by guilt I confessed that I was faking to my mother as she did the dishes. Without looking up, without making a fuss at all, she simply said, “I know,” and continued to fill the dishwasher. I was perplexed. She wasn’t mad. She wasn’t worried. She didn’t do anything. Several years of intense treatments, but all she could give me was that she knew. We didn’t speak about it again until years later at the breakfast table with Lyn. She told Lyn I had asthma, and I said I didn’t. She shook her head and said, “Well you had some other things going on with you.”
If she knew, that meant she allowed me to receive years of difficult and painful treatment I didn’t need. How could she do that? Why would she do that?
I called her the next day and asked her about it. I was angry and she erupted in hysterics, threatening to hurt herself before hanging up on me. I let some other family members know and received a few bits of helpful confirmation.
I didn’t speak to my mother again. I felt a sense of relief, but I still didn’t understand it. The black box might have cracked open, but I hadn’t even begun to explore what was inside.
I told myself stories when I was young. I would sit alone with my action figures for several hours, creating expansive narratives. I created myths about myself where I was a hero, saving the world. Every night before bed I imagined myself blasting off into space, that I was no longer attached to the world, off on epic adventures. I told myself stories because the truth was too horrifying. Over time, the stories pushed the other memories, the memories I didn’t want, into the black box.
Slowly, I was pulling little bits out. I knew whatever was in there had to do with my mom. Not just because of the asthma, but also because she was conspicuously absent from my childhood memories. At any moment I can conjure up dozens of images of my father, my grandmother, my cousin and lots of specific events from weekends I’d spent with my dad. I lived with my mom and spent most of my time with her. She was also taking me out of school with fake asthma attacks at least once a week. I was with her all the time. I should have had more memories of her, but I didn’t. I had very few and they were all uncomfortable.
Peering into the black box was and still is a harrowing experience. My pulse would quicken until I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I knew that if I opened myself up enough, I could see the truth, but I also knew that the truth was so terrible, that approaching it gave me a panic attack. There were several times that I approached just to back away.
When I was finally desperate enough to keep going I got the answer.
My first orgasm was with my mother.
It happened when I was very young, around the time I was diagnosed with asthma. It kept happening dozens of times, a few times a week. She would encourage me to fake an asthma attack to get me out of school because it would be an opportunity for her to get me alone. She would take me to different places, sometimes public restrooms, sometimes she would do it in the car. I would beg her to stop, I would tell her I was scared, but she would act like she couldn’t hear me. She became a different person. A person she reminded me of when I was visiting Lyn for the last time.
The process of getting in touch with these experiences was extraordinarily difficult and involved reliving the feeling of terror and powerlessness that comes with a sexual experience before your body or mind is ready. It also came with the desolate heartbreaking feeling that someone you love with your whole heart would hurt you when you tell her you’re scared.
But I wanted to know. I wanted to understand. My entire life had been haunted by this nightmare. I wanted to be free from it. So I kept going.
I dealt with intense distrust of myself. The thing about an orgasm that you’re not ready for and that you don’t want is that it’s still an orgasm. It’s the height of pleasure, something that feels so good that humans spend most of their time in search of it. But when you don’t want it, it feels like your body is your enemy. It’s gross. I’m gross. This is what I like and it’s disgusting. So, the greatest force, the thing that is designed to drive us together, becomes corrupted by shame and guilt.
Just as I was learning to trust myself I had to confront the fact that recovered memories are, at best, controversial. And I was taking psychedelics to uncover them. I was literally tripping. Maybe I made it all up. Maybe I am the monster for blaming my mom for my failings with a fabricated tale of abuse. I desperately wanted to find a way to prove it. But there was no one willing to talk about it with me.
I accepted that I can only really know what is true for me. As these experiences erupted on the surface of my mind, so many questions about myself became really clear. Why did I have such a hard time staying engaged in long term committed relationships? Why did I only feel good when I was drunk? Or, once I got sober, why did I only feel good working 60 hours a week and maintaining an athlete level training regimen? Why could I only perform sexually in extremely casual relationships? Why did I always feel like killing myself? They all seemed to be orbiting the same truth.
My mother hurt me, on purpose.
My father and I had been estranged for years. He became the target of the inner turmoil. The reason, I told myself, that I felt so disconnected from the world was him. He was the reason I drank. My dad showed me scary movies when I was 6 years old, around the same time I was experiencing the abuse. So, I decided he was the reason I was always scared, that Nightmare on Elm Street was the reason I always needed my back to something, not because my mom might allow a doctor to perform an unnecessary procedure on me so she could abuse me.
But, when I was a kid, weekends with my dad were my favorite times. He would take us to the video store and rent an action flick for us, usually something that was inappropriate for a 6 or 7 year old, like Predator or Robocop. He would tell me stories about his wild teenage years, when he would race cars or sneak across the border to Mexico. They were often harrowing tales, that didn’t all have happy endings.
One of those tales, he told me as Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds was playing on the radio. He pointed out that the initials of the song were “LSD”, which was the name of a drug. He said the Beatles wrote the song as an homage to it. I asked him if he ever took it and he told me he had. He also told me one of his friends took it and ended up freaking out, thinking the wolf man was chasing him and he hid in the closet for several hours. The combination of the beautiful, poetic lyrics coming from John Lennon, but also such intense fear inspired by the same substance sounded like something I wanted.
Over 30 years later, around the anniversary of Lyn’s death, I was heavy. Anyone connected with my mother was no longer talking to me and I hadn’t talked to anyone on my dad’s side in years. Lyn was gone. I felt alone.
Since LSD had started the journey, I figured I would take LSD to commemorate the anniversary. Since LSD lasts about 12 hours, I like to go to the grocery store ahead of time to make sure I have everything I might want or need in the house. Fresh fruits, bottled water, that kind of thing. While picking out some oranges, a young kid wearing a wolf man mask, approached me and shouted “Happy Halloween”, before his mother shuffled him away. It was late August.
About an hour after dropping the acid, I heard my grandmother’s voice on my father’s side and felt the presence of my father. My grandmother, an old Japanese woman, said in her distinctive voice, “Surprise, Lucas. We saved you!”. Then I heard what I thought was my biological father’s voice.
My grandmother passed away several years ago, so when I heard my dad’s voice I assumed something had happened to him. I reached out to my cousin and said I was worried about my dad. And a few moments later, my phone rang and the caller ID had his name.
We talked for hours. We talked about sunsets, about Bruce Lee, I told him everything I’d gone through. He listened without judgment. My dad is not the most patient man, but he stayed on the phone with me, even after he realized I was tripping on acid. I had a family again. Grandma saved me.
We decided we should get together and made plans for me to come visit the soonest I could make it work, which just so happened to fall on Halloween.
So many magical things had broken me apart and put me back together that I began to anticipate them. I had been freed from the abuse of my mother, I had reconnected with my father, who was now a sweet kind man who has been sober several years. My career had improved though I still had a long way to go. I figured it was coming. In fact, I was so sure of it, I started to wait for the magic.
So, a year later I was buzzing, waiting for Taylor Swift’s first release of completely new music since evermore. I figured it would be the signal toward the next transcendent moment. I was sleeping in my grandmother’s old bedroom, visiting my father, the night Midnights came out. I immediately loved Maroon and Anti-Hero. But there was something about it, it didn’t click in the same way that the others had. But when You’re on Your Own Kid played, I felt like I was hearing my stepfather’s voice. That was the message. I needed to stop waiting for a sign. I needed to find it.
The black box was open, but I wasn’t free, I didn’t completely trust myself. I felt like I wasn’t living up to my potential, but couldn’t figure out why. I tried to force myself to be more disciplined. I tried different journaling and calendaring techniques and got incremental improvements. I measured my sleep, my diet, my activity. I maintained a regular meditation practice. But there was something I hadn’t figured out. Why did I still get so anxious?
A few weeks before the concert a friend of mine, someone with a tremendous spiritual practice, asked to have a meeting with me. Since we work together, we had a typical business meeting before she told me she felt she had to tell me something. She felt like I was blocked, like I was lion stuck in a cage. She said that she had gone through a similar path of rapid spiritual development, and she wished she’d enjoyed it more. She told me not everyone’s purpose is so grandiose. She said I needed to enjoy myself, that I needed to do something dumb.
While an incredibly generous and kind conversation, it sent me into a spiral. I admire this woman tremendously, so this message weighed heavy. I decided what she was saying was not that I needed to enjoy my life, but that I wasn’t meant for great things.
After a day of turmoil, I connected with what she meant. She wanted me to find joy in my life. But all I wanted was approval. I wanted her to tell me I was destined for great things. I still needed validation. Because I hadn’t solved the underlying problem. It’s me. Hi.
I needed validation because the fundamental thing transmitted in trauma and abuse is shame. I don’t love myself. I don’t trust myself. Because my mother, who I loved more than anything, would hurt me on purpose. And she told me she did it because of me. So instead of deciding what I want and doing it, I wait for other people to tell me I am allowed. I wait for someone to tell me I’m good. That I’m worthy. But that’s no else’s job. And it never was. You’re on your own kid. You always have been.
So, as I scrolled through available tickets, the same thoughts crept back in. I couldn’t go to a Taylor Swift concert. This is a show for teenage girls, not middle-aged men. The other fans will be uncomfortable. But that wasn’t the real reason.
The real reason was the same reason that when Taylor was touring for 1989 and I excitedly bought Jasmine tickets for her birthday, but sent my ex-wife to go with her.
It’s the same reason I never danced.
It’s the same reason I have a mountain of unfinished scripts and half written stories on my hard drive.
It’s because I don’t love myself. Because enjoying myself is shameful.
Then I saw it. A ticket in the 13th row for $1,013. For the uninitiated, 13 is Taylor’s favorite number and the day she was born. Okay Taylor, okay Lyn. I’m coming. I clicked to buy and was assigned seat 18, the day Lyn died.
My name is Lucas, and I am a Swiftie. I have a journal that says “Aurora’s and Sad Prose” on the cover. There are entire months that no other artist gets played in my car. I can give you all the words to Shake It Off, right now. I can also give you New Romantics. Or Mean, or Message in a Bottle. Or Clean. Or marjorie. Name a song, and I can probably give you every word. I’ve cried listening to Taylor Swift.
And I’m not the only one. The thing about great art is that it creates deeply personal experiences with people you might have never met. There are millions of others just like me, who put on a Taylor Swift album when they hurt, when they love, when they’re stressed. If shame drives us apart, then art brings us together.
Tonight thousands of fans will come together. And I have a ticket to be among them. And tonight, Lyn, I am going to dance. For all that we’ve been through. I’m going to dance like you were in the room. Because you will be. And so will Taylor fucking Swift.
*On epiphany
We moved in with Lyn Taylor on Thanksgiving, 1992. One of the first things we had in common was a love of basketball. His favorite team was the University of Arizona Wildcats, and mine was the Chicago Bulls. He had lived in Arizona for decades, so he naturally rooted for all things Arizona and found it strange the following summer that I was cheering for the Bulls when they played the Phoenix Suns in the Finals.
A few years later, when Michael Jordan returned to the Bulls, he became a fan with me. Partially because we had grown close over the previous couple of years. But also because Steve Kerr, a former guard from the University of Arizona was now on the team. One of his favorite moments was when Steve Kerr, his favorite player, took the pass from Michael Jordan, my favorite player, and hit the game winning shot in the 1997 to propel our favorite team, the Chicago Bulls to their 5th NBA championship.
In the summer of 2020, The Last Dance, a 10-part documentary about the Chicago Bulls became the thing to watch for sports fans starved for content. The ninth episode, which aired May 10th, around the time Lyn was deciding to stop seeking treatment, featured the story of Steve Kerr. It focused heavily on how Steve Kerr lost his father while he was in college, and how painful that was. It also featured the moment Steve Kerr hit the big shot. A day after it aired, I took mushrooms for the first time.
On Thanksgiving of 2020, 3 months after Lyn passed away, Taylor Swift released folklore: the long pond studio sessions on Disney Plus. She played the entire album with her collaborators. She also provided some commentary on what she was thinking about when she made each song. As epiphany approached, the 13th song on the album, I was nervous about what she might say. The song already meant so much to me, could she say something to change that?
She explained that she decided to write something different, that she thought it might be about sports.
Because she was watching the Last Dance.
thank you for your story. I needed it.
So sorry for your pain. It saddens me that your basic comfort comes from a woman and her songs. There is a better comforter who changed my life 50 years ago during the most painful revelation I experienced. I turned to God and asked Him to reveal Himself to me, and a week later he sent a sweet stranger into my life, who told me about Jesus. I didn’t know Him, I wasn’t a religious person, but I was desperate so I listened to her. She explained that Jesus was real and He loved me. All I needed to do was ask Him into my life and He would be there! I did and believe me, life has not been easy, extremely painful at times with losses I never thought I could endure plus abusive actions against
Me for years, yet, my Lord has been with me too, and I have never felt alone again. God bless you and I am praying you too may experience the loving and satisfying walk with Jesus!