When I married Ken, I was 18.  He was nearly twenty-seven.  I left a town that I had spent my entire life in, and moved to Pensacola, Florida,where he was a flight instructor--teaching cadets to land on the carrier.  I was so young, and totally lost.  I had no family, no friends.  Everyone in the squadron was older, with kids--and I truly didn't fit in anywhere.  I went to work at the church.  But everyone there was much older as well.  I had no experience in making friends--in Pryor everyone was my friend.  We had all grown up together.  The loneliness for family and friends was acute.

Just when I was finally finding a routine that I was semi-comfortable with, Ken got orders to California.  Camp Pendleton.  He was the Air Officer for the 7th regiment.  Teaching ground personal how to use the air component efficiently.  Teaching the ground troops how to guide air strikes.  Teaching them what a plane could do, and what it couldn't.  And I finally made my first friend  Elizabeth--Lib.  She was 10 years older as well, but she had just had her first child.  I was three months pregnant.  She took me under her wing.  She was my friend.

Then everyone got transferred, and I didn't see Lib again for five years.  Ken was in Junior School at Quantico when Lib's husband got transferred in as well--I didn't know she was there--she had only been there a few days getting moved in, finding out who else was at Quantico.

I had just had our third daughter, who died unexpectedly at nine days.  Lib dropped everything, came to the house and told me to get out of the bed--where I was curled up, grieving.  She said, "You aren't sick, and your two daughters need you.  Get up.  I'm going to bind your breasts so your milk doesn't come in."  She began to tear strips from the sheet, bound me and said: "We're going shopping.  You're life isn't over.  You are still a mother.  Get your girls and let's go."  She pushed me into starting over.

Years later, Ken had retired, Lib had gotten a divorce, changed her name and I lost her.  Nobody knew what had happened to her.  I finally found her in a nursing home on the East Coast. Ken and I left Pryor and drove to Virginia, to go be with her.  It broke my heart.  She was dying.  I loved her.  She loved me.  Where do such friends come from?  I was nineteen.  I was so alone when she rescued me.  And taught me that no matter what happens, you can't stop living.  You never, never give in.  You never, never give up.  Your family needs you and you must, you have to go on.