Recovery made room for love, and love made room for us. Shawna’s parents married young on April 11, 1992, in a northern Illinois town where they grew up. Her mom was nineteen and expecting Shawna at the time. Later, a sister came in 1996 and a brother in 1999. The family settled in Salem, a small town in southeastern Wisconsin. In 2003, the marriage ended. Shawna was in fourth grade, her sister in first, and their brother was three. Her father’s struggle with alcohol shaped much of their childhood. He had joined the Marines after high school and suffered a back injury, and drinking followed. Shawna’s memories of her parents together are mostly arguments. He collected DUIs, slipped in and out of sobriety, and spent time in jail for years.
When he was locked up during the divorce, her mother scrambled to find work and keep the kids in their school. The house went into foreclosure, and money was tight. Shawna remembers dollar-menu dinners and her mother skipping food so the kids could eat. Sometimes the money came from coins found around the house. Hope flickered on better days when her dad was sober and present. Then weekends would come, bags packed by the door, and he wouldn’t show. That silence said everything. The fallout reached Shawna’s heart. She took divorce and anger classes, felt friends’ parents hesitate about sleepovers, and watched her world shrink. She built armor, acting like nothing could touch her. Meanwhile, her dad wrecked cars and dodged disaster. She prayed he would not kill himself or anyone else.
In 2014, he was arrested again for drunk driving. He went to prison for six months, then to a jail program focused on addiction. By then, Shawna had a two-year-old son who adored his grandpa, and she protected her child from the confusion she had known. She chose a different way to help. Every Sunday, she drove three and a half hours there and back to visit, bringing family when she could, trying to show him a path home. When he was released in October 2015, she picked him up and took him to the small one-bedroom duplex she shared with her son. They made space, made rules, and made a fresh start. He stayed sober. Neither parent remarried after the divorce. People said Shawna’s mom still loved her dad; she denied it. Maybe they both felt it and hid it under old hurt. After two solid years of sobriety, Shawna noticed whispers of something new. Her dad spent more time at her mom’s house. There was teasing, soft looks, and a feeling that history might shift.
When Shawna was pregnant with her daughter, her mom admitted that her dad had asked her out. It surprised everyone and no one. He kept doing the work. Years passed. He stayed sober. In 2019, they bought a beautiful home together. The grandkids filled it with noise. Shawna’s brother returned from four years in the Marines and moved in. That summer, they planned a housewarming and a welcome-home party. Early June, their dad swore Shawna and her sister to secrecy and took them ring shopping. He wanted to propose at the party.
They were thrilled and told no one, not even their brother. On the day, friends and family gathered. Shawna kept waiting for the signal. Then her mom turned off the music and asked everyone to sit. An aunt approached with a paper and called for bridesmaids and a best man. It was Shawna, her sister, and her brother. The surprise flipped. Their parents were not getting engaged. They were getting married, right there, in their own home, with an aunt ordained to perform the ceremony. Laughter and tears met in the same breath.
They had lost years to addiction. Now they were choosing how to use the years ahead. Shawna’s relief was profound and straightforward: her kids would grow up with their grandparents. No shattered weekends. No unanswered doors. Two people had paid a hard price for peace and decided to build it anyway. Shawna knows forgiveness is not always possible or safe. She also knows it can be powerful. Her mother’s strength kept their family upright; her father’s sobriety kept the door open. Their story taught Shawna to believe in change, to bet on effort, and to hold room for love that learns. It is not a fairy tale but a choice repeated daily.
