A Walk In Time (Prolog and Chapter 1)

Prolog

My story is not one filled with a perfect romance nor one with finding a long lost love. It is not one of a mysterious murder mystery nor one of over coming a great tremendous tragedy. It is a simple life, not to flashy or full of excitement......but it is my life, just a life of learning from my mistakes, rasing a family, and loving a man. You may not find this to amusing or entertaining. You may be even at this moment wonder why you would even want to read this. I myself wonder why I am writing it. I am loved and I do love. I have had my share of heart breaks, lonely nights, and days wonder why I should even go on. But I have also had wonderful days of joy, love, and laughter that out way all the bad ones. I have dear friends that I will never forget, ones that I often wonder what happened to us. Friends that lean on me and the always faithful ones that listen to my problems and know when there is one before I can pick up the phone and tell them. Nearing the age of 30 it has caused me to start to look back at my life and ask myself “Did I leave my mark? Did I change the life of someone? Was I important?”. As I ask myself these questions I start to remember times in my life that have been pushed so far back in my mind that I wonder if they really happened or was it all just a dream. This is my story, my life, the life of Dawn-Ranell Rayne.




Chapter 1
My Beginning


I was born in a mid-size town in North Eastern Kentucky in 1978. Ashland is a river town bordering two other states Ohio and West Virginia. It is a steel making community and the cities way of life. You can not meet one person on the street that doesn’t know someone or their self doesn’t work for the steel mill. I love this town, loved it as I grew up and enjoy rasing my children here, this is home. The weather is always perfect in my eyes. We have our snow in the winter, but never to bitter cold. Summer is hot but not to hot that you want to stay inside under the fan all day. Spring is warm, but not too much, and the smells of the flowers and trees consume the air. And then there is fall. I would have to say that fall is the most wonderful time of the year here. The changing colors of the trees are immaculate, the reds, oranges, and yellows fill the city skyline along the river and a warmth come over you, something I wish I could explain in words. But there are no words that could even compare to it. The Friday night football games, smells of the tailgaters food as you walk in line to get your tickets, Poage landing days to honor the founding family of the city, and smells of apple butter being made from the local church my parents attend. It is truly my favorite time of the year, and of corse I was born in the fall, October 2nd to be exact.
I had a normal childhood. Parents that loved me and took care of me, came to all the school function and ever basketball game I cheered at. My family was different, but a good different. My mother Kerri was 18 when she gave birth to me. My birth father, and I call him that because that is all he ever was, wanted nothing to do with it. Trust me my mother was better off. We lived with my grandparents for the first 4 years of my life. My mother had a second child, my brother Sean. When I was 4 I had this church bus driver that always made me smile and he would always let me sit up font of the bus, I liked him right away. On Easter Sunday 1983 Harry, the bus driver, gave me a chocolate bunny, and I never knew till years later that this was just a trick to get my mothers attention. Harry was a very attractive man, a little grey, but his eyes made you fill love, and I felt he loved me. He was 28 years older than my Mom, and had 3 grown sons, one which was older than Mom, one the same age, and one younger. His wife had died in October of 1982 from Cancer. My mother told me years later that he told her on there first date if he wasn’t so old he would ask her to marry him. Well July 1, 1983 they were married and me and my brother finally had our own Daddy. In 1987 my Dad, a.k.a. Harry adopted Sean and me. I remember the lawyer coming and talking with us, and how excited and happy Dad was, now we were his children and no one could say any different.
I meet my best friend Laura in the 3rd grade, Mrs. Hodges class to be exact. There was just something about her, and knew then we would be friends for life, and we are. We were in the same classes until 6th grade. That was one of the saddest moments on my life. Laura’s mom had meet and married a wonderful man who was in the military, Laura was on her way to Germany. Our only communication for the next 5 years was letters and an occasional visit if they came in town. I always missed her so much. I was a cheerleader and really enjoyed it, it gave me something to do and keep my mind off of Laura being gone. Middle school came and went, not much really happened there except those silly boy crushes I had, and Dad telling me I was too young. He would always say, “I was a boy once, I know what they want.” High school, now that was interesting.
I was a band geek, and a proud one at that. I played Clarinet, I wasn’t bad, but I wasn’t great. My freshman and sophomore year went by to fast, but things started to slow down at the end of sophomore year. This started a new chapter in my life, one I never thought could happen to me.