Lessons Learned from Painful Experiences

"I think I finally got my peace of mind when I accepted the fact that she was my mother and in her own way she loved me. That was when I was 23."
Lena (mentor)

One problem I had with my parents about the age of 13 or 14 was trying to run my own life and not listening to there rules.This went on for a long time so at age 15, I made a choice of not coming home for three days. By that time my parents got fed up with my crap and told me to live somewhere else. So I did. I had fun for a little while but then I started to miss my family and they missed me, too. So six months later I moved home... after I got out of the hospital. It was good. We all got along better. My Mom and I get along real well. I found out that my family is like any other maybe we just handle things differently.
Shannon (mentee)

"Winter was over buy the time we'd paid our debt. We'd end up with say 75 or 80 dollars..use it to get some more seed..throw it into the ground..and another crop failure..nothing! This went on for years...I decided to get out of there."
Fred (mentor)

"Another hard time was when I had a breakdown: I got locked up at Mercywood Hospital that was kinda' rough when they lock the door behind you, although, I ended up being the chaplain at Mercywood. But when you are locked up in a hospital that is a hundred years old with people in all states of dementia- it was tough...(hard times) helped me to understand and they gave me the insight to help other people. That's why I started volunteering for Phoenix High School and Livingston Literacy Council and things like that."
Bill ((mentor)

"I never used to think about the feelings of my parents and the effects of what I did to them. I never really cared but now I do and I am going to stick with that because I have a terrific relationship with my dad. I was destroying that relationship with my dad and he wasn't trusting me like he used to and he was disappointed with me all the time and we never had as much fun as when he wasn't disappointed."
Chris (mentee)

(How copes with loss of use of legs:)"I have no qualms about it. I do about everything anybody else does except I don't run any foot races...I had a lot of help from my family during that time (when became disabled)."
Tony (mentor)

"If life deals you a slump, push past it. You need high spirits or you won't survive (you won't want to anyway). We all control our own happiness-remember that."
Nik (mentee)

"Hard times affect me a lot. I always think about the bad things that happened to me in the past. But as life goes on, hopefully you think less and less about those bad times."
Monica (mentor)

(After the loss of her husband and her adopted son) "Well, I said, 'I'm not going to sit around and cry all day.' So I didn't. I looked around to see what I could do. I thought, 'While I am here in this world I'm gonna' be a credit to everybody.' I helped everybody I knew..if they needed a baby sitter..I washed..I could cook some, In fact, I could cook good [sic]. If I made something someone else liked and they wanted it, I said, 'Come on, help yourself.'"
Helen (mentor)

"When my parents got divorced... I learned how to cope with my feelings and to understand that life takes unexpected turns when you don't know they're coming... I was sad and I missed living with both my parents. I didn't understand why they had broken up and thought maybe it was my fault, but I realize now that it wasn't."
Dan (mentee)