Page 18 - eBook Living Water 2

feel the excitement of romance and having some pleasure and
happiness come into my life. We “fell in love”. Donnie got a quick
Alabama divorce and two months later we were married. What I
hadn’t realized at the time was that his mother disapproved of his
divorce and remarriage, to the point that she was threatening to cut
him out of their will. Two months later, Donnie left me to return to
his first wife.

Now I had the humiliation and shame of flunking out of
school, as well as flunking out on marriage. This time, though, armed
with the ability to express the anger that I had learned in therapy, I felt
emboldened, like a Don Quixote with a sword drawn, to venture out
on a quest to conquer the world by having fun. That brought me in
short order into another relationship with one of Donnie’s childhood
friends. He introduced me to sailing, snow skiing, traveling and we
shared a love for animals. However, he also had a love for other girls
which turned into a nine year roller coaster ride of an “on-again off-
again” relationship between us. For a while, that hardly mattered to
me, since I was determined to live a carefree life, anyway.

It was around this time that my life was, quite literally, struck
by a life threatening event while at a ski club picnic at the beach. A
club member’s sixteen year old daughter and I, age twenty two, were
in the ocean surfing. When huge, dark clouds began quickly blowing
in from the west, we hustled ourselves out of the water with our
surfboards overhead. As we scurried up the beach, a bright light
blinded us, followed by an ear deafening clap of thunder. Joni was
only about two feet away from me. I heard the crackle of electricity
from the lightening traveling through my hands. My knees buckled
and I fell to the sand. Ski club members rushed over to us. They
helped me back to the beach house while Joni lay still on the sand.
Ambulances were called. One took me and the other took Joni with
her mother to the hospital.

I was told in the emergency room that I had only superficial
burns on my hands and feet. They sent me out to be with Joni’s
mother in the waiting room. When the doctor came out he told her