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21 " For nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the ind as a steady purpose -- a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye. "
― Jaycee Dugard , A Stolen Life
22 " Families are like snowflakes: they come in many shapes and sizes and no two are the same. And like a snowflake, they are very delicate and must be protected and guarded from elements that threaten to destroy their precarious balance. "
23 " T. S. Eliot once wrote, “I said to my soul be still, and wait without hope; for hope would be hope for the wrong thing. "
24 " People who hate waste so much of their life hating that they miss out on all the other stuff out here. "
25 " My trust and hope were indeed put in the wrong person(s), but nevertheless it still lived. "
26 " I am so lucky and blessed for all the wonderful things that I do have. Life is too short to think about all the things you don’t have. "
27 " I could not have gotten through my ordeal without believing that someday my life would make sense. Life’s adventure is important. It is important to live each day to its fullest, whatever life brings you.~Allissa "
28 " Life is so uncontrollable. It just continues and we just ride the wave it creates.~Allissa "
29 " But of course this is reality I must survive "
30 " The strange man hauls me up and shoves me into the backseat and down onto the floorboards of his car. My brain feels fuzzy. I don’t understand what’s happening. I want to go home. I want to crawl back into my bed. I want to play with my sister. I want my mommy. I want time to reverse itself and give me a do-over. "
31 " I want to tell him I want to go home, but I am so scared. I am afraid to make the man angry. What should I do? I just don’t know what to do. I wish I did. I’m so scared. I want to go to sleep and pretend this is not happening. Why is this happening? Who are these people and what do they want with me? "
32 " I feel like I am in a nightmare that I have no control over. Silent tears start spilling over my cheeks. They feel hot against my cold skin. I start to shiver. I am so cold. I try to stop the tears. I tell myself I must be brave. It feels like my life is not my own anymore. My whole body feels heavy and I just want to collapse. This cannot be real. I tell myself it’s only a dream. "
33 " He used his powers of persuasion to gain my trust. He became my entire world. I depended on him for food, water, my toilet. He was my only source of amusement. I craved human contact so much by then that I actually looked forward to him coming to see me; it felt like he was bestowing a gift to me: his presence. He was all I knew for months. "
34 " did I have? He controlled everything. He said Nancy "
35 " Genes, I have learned, do not make a family. Families are the people that stick around through good and bad times. Sadness is part of life. Choosing to be happy and see the glass half full is a struggle we all must make. "
36 " Part of me still can’t help but wonder if someone had taken the time to peer below the surface, would my life and the lives of my family be any different? I ask this hard question not to point fingers, but to bring up the sometimes uncomfortable topic of laziness and responsibility. In life we don’t have redo buttons. The trick is to do the job right the first time. Let’s move on and learn from my past so it doesn’t happen again. "