Meg Beasley

Features/Donnell

Word Count: 1125

Just Breathe

March 16, 1988 is a precious day that will be remembered always. Because on

this day in Birmingham, Alabama a 6 pounds 8 ounce beautiful baby girl stretched her

little arms and took her very first breath. That was the blessed moment that joy entered

the world.

If you are not laughing yet, I welcome you to start now because that sweet little

infant I am referring to is myself, and my words are obviously flowing with sarcasm.

Yes, I am a joyful person and yes my birthday might be remembered by some of my

friends and a few of my family members, but 21 years later I still often feel like I am

taking my first breath.

My life has by no means been ordinary. In fact, I would consider it extraordinary,

dysfunctional, nontraditional, complicated, and totally worth living. From walking

through the experience of watching my superhero father deteriorate from pancreatic

cancer and growing up much faster than expected, my life has been a unique journey that

I proudly claim as my own. I have realized through triumphs and trials that often times,

all I know to do in this world of uncertainty is just keep breathing.

Though the journey technically began on March 16, 1988, the portion of my life

that has brought me into the woman I am today started when I was 9 years old with the

illness of my father.

After four heroic years of fighting his cancer, we lost Dad just a week after my

13th birthday. When Dad died, my mom, my older brother Rus and I became a team. We

leaned on each other and carried each other’s burdens. Nothing could break us and

nothing could tear us apart, or so I thought.

Two years after Dad’s death my brother set off to brave the college life. By doing

so, Rus broke our trinity and left my mom and I to fend for ourselves at home.

I learned to love having girl time with my mom. Late night talks and watching

multiple re-runs of ER suited me just fine, but apparently Mom had a different outlook on

the situation. She missed having a man around the house, and it didn’t take long before

my mom decided to start dating.

She went on few dates with various men, and there were several nights where I,

her 15-year-old daughter, would wait up anxiously for my mother to come strolling in the

front door only to be standing there tapping my watch and shouting phrases such as,

“Where have you been? I’ve been worried sick!”

But even after coming home late and enjoying lovely evenings of being wined

and dined, Mom never came home with a smile, until she met Phil Martin.

Phil was a clean-cut man from Nashville, Tennessee. He had a broad stature and

an endearing smile that confidently carried him through conversation, but his friendly

demeanor did not stop me from seeing him as just another single dude who was out to get

my mother. He said all the right things, made all the right moves, and unlike the other

men Mom had dated, he was sincere in his pursuit.

It seemed as though Mom and Phil dated in fast-forward. Having both lost their

spouses they were able to relate on a level that not many people could understand. After

just a few months of dating, Mom dropped a bomb on both my brother and me that would

forever change our lives.

Rus, who was a freshman at Auburn University, had come home for the weekend

to watch his alma mater football team duke it out with one of their biggest rivals. Usually

my mom was ecstatic when both of her children were at home spending time with her,

but on this particular Friday, Mother was acting very strange.

After pacing back and forth for a while, finally it happened. Mom walked into the

room where Rus and I were sitting and shouted with wavering confidence, “Phil and I are

getting married and we are moving to Nashville!” After these words came out of her

mouth, it was almost as if she had been holding her breath all day and was thankfully

gasping for air. I however did not feel this same sense of relief.

Ironically enough, as soon as her words penetrated the air, as if only to make the

wound deeper, the taunting lyrics of Maroon 5 “is there anyone out there cause it’s

getting harder and harder to breathe” came blaring out of the computer speakers and

began resonating in my head.

I couldn’t breathe. My world was over. Just as I was beginning to get used to life

without Dad, just as I was starting to feel like myself again, I was being uprooted and

moved into a new city, a new school, and gaining a whole new family. This time, I

struggled to keep breathing.

Despite my efforts to brake up the relationship, in late January of 2004, Margaret

Beasley and Phil Martin were married. In early May we packed up our house in

Birmingham and made the longest three hour drive of my life to Nashville, Tennessee.

Upon our arrival our two new stepbrothers, Hutch and Davis, hesitantly greeted Rus and

me with a side hug and a forced smile.

Summer crawled by and in late August it was time for me to go to school and

experience the major differences between my previous co-ed public school and my new

all-girls preparatory school. After a nauseating amount of surface-level conversations and

fighting through the feeling that every girl was talking about me as I walked down the

halls slowly dissipated midway through my first semester.

With the help of my new best friend Sarah Norton and my understanding and

patient step-dad Phil, learning to breathe in this new city and new school slowly became

easier, and Nashville began to feel like home. Junior and senior year flew by and before I

knew it I was on my way to Auburn to experience my next big move. However this

change was different because my life’s journey had prepared me for nothing short of big

changes and breath was no longer something I had to fight for.

From deaths to new cities to new family members and to new friends, I am still

figuring out this complicated life of mine. And as complicated as it may be, my life thus

far has been a journey of firsts and I am thankful for every new breath that I am given.

Sometimes all I know to do is just keep breathing.