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The rain continued to pour down as Maggie looked out the bedroom window of her downtown condo. It seemed like it would never quit raining and she was eager to get out to finish her yardwork. The condo association had a shared, rooftop garden space for all of the owners to participate in.  Maggie loved getting out and getting her hands dirty. The small amount of vegetables she grew wasn’t enough to make a dent in her grocery bill, but it felt good to make a salad out of the tomatoes, peppers, and spinach she grew.  The neighbors often shared their harvest, and got together in the courtyard to display the fruits of their labor.  As Maggie watched the relentless rain, she thought back to what she has been able to accomplish through her adversity. The formation of her non-profit was attained through coffee and God. Maggie spent many nights praying to find the energy to continue her work and research on her non-profit.

Maggie was young when she married Tim; they knew they had differences but the passion they felt for each other was too hard to resist. They dated for only 8 months before getting married. Maggie was 20 and Tim was 21; it was going to be a few rough months as they learned how to be a married couple. Neither one of them had great role models to learn from; Tim came from an abusive home and Maggie practically grew up in an orphanage, and then spent her 16^th year of life in one foster home and her 17^th year in another. At age 18, she moved out on her own and went to a community college on a combination of government funding and scholarships. She had chosen to do veterinary assistant partly because it was only a 2-year program and partly because she loved animals. She was never able to have a pet of her own growing up, so she wanted to explore the world of helping animals.  Maggie worked in a local veterinary office, while Tim completed his last year of school; He was going to college to become an Engineer; he aspired to do great things in the world of construction.  After their 2^nd year of marriage, they toyed with the idea of having kids.  They had ironed out their differences in how to manage the bills, how to organize the kitchen, who cooks and cleans, and various other areas that can drive a wedge between couples.  Maggie stopped taking her birth control and they decided to see what happens.

Six months after Maggie stopped her pills, she wasn’t pregnant.  They figured they were both under stress of working too many hours. Maggie was pulling a few double shifts and Tim had secured a job at a major construction company which required long hours.  They decided to take a 2 week vacation to relax, reconnect, and take a break from their busy life.  They had chosen a romantic resort in the Bahama’s; it was a remote location and it had all the amenities they could imagine.  Maggie remembers how much fun they had, how they laughed, played, and rekindled the romance. It isn’t that they stopped being romantic at home, it was just that it had to fit into their schedules and that wasn’t conducive to getting pregnant.  Tim wanted a large family; he felt like they could provide kids with a loving environment and give them everything the two of them never experienced.  Four weeks after their vacation, Maggie started her period. She was disappointed but Tim was devastated.

Maggie went to a fertility specialist shortly afterwards. She learned that she only ovulated every other month and had some issues with endometriosis.  Tim tested out just fine, no issues on his end. Maggie started the relentless practice of charting her temperature to find out when she was ovulating. It became a scheduling game with her and Tim’s romantic encounters and started to weigh on each of them. Maggie went in for treatments of progesterone and even in-vitro, but nothing worked. The third year of their marriage began to take a toll.  Tim lost interest in trying further and started working longer hours. Maggie felt like a failure and began to resent hearing about baby showers, kids’ birthdays, and all the other talk, at work, of breast feeding, bottle feeding, and late night cries in the night.  Maggie couldn’t contribute to the conversations, so she just bottled up her anger and resentment. 

Maggie recalls taking her temperature one morning and knowing that it was the ideal time. It was the 2^nd month of their 4^th year of marriage. Maggie wanted so hard to get pregnant and decided not to say anything to Tim about it being “the right time”.  Instead, she nuzzled up to him during his morning coffee and told him she bought a new nightie. “I’ll show it to you when you get home tonight. I am making your favorite meal and then we can share a bottle of wine”, Maggie said enticingly.  Tim looked up at her, a little surprised, not overly enthusiastic, but she could see his mind working.  “Come on, let’s just forget about everything going on and put some music on and get back to our dating days” Maggie coaxed.  Tim smiled, told her he would try to finish up early, and text her later about what time he’d be home.  Maggie had rushed home from work, asking if she could leave early.  She had all the vegetables ready to roast, the salmon seasoned and waiting in the fridge, and Tim’s favorite red wine ready to start breathing.  At 6:00 pm, she received a text from Tim that read “sorry, I have to finish a project, let’s reschedule our dinner, be home late.”  Maggie was furious, disheartened, and feeling rejected. How could he be so insensitive to her?  Something inside her died a little as she felt the sting of rejection and failure.  She went to bed and heard Tim come in at 10 o’clock, he was whistling a tune that she couldn’t make out.  He changed into some pajama’s and headed back downstairs.  Maggie got up, went to the hamper, and picked up his dress shirt he had just taken off.  She could smell food on it and saw a slight stain of what looked like red wine that he tried to get out.  So much for him finishing a project at work. 

“How could you?” Maggie cried out to Tim. She had gone downstairs with his dress shirt in her hand and now stood through teary eyes staring at him. Tim just looked at her with a cold look in his eyes. He accused her of spying on him and acting like a nag. He said that after he knew he missed dinner, he decided to go with the guys to a restaurant on the river.  She later learned that “the guys” was a woman named Renee. She worked as a project manager on his latest endeavor. She was 24 years old, a body builder, and single. It was one of those things, he said, “it just happened”. He said he was sorry but Maggie could see that he was checked out of their marriage. He didn’t want to go to counseling, he would get angry at almost everything she said and he thought it would be a good idea to take a break from each other.  Maggie knew that taking a break would lead to a divorce but she didn’t have the energy or confidence to try any longer. At age 24, she was going to be a divorcee.  That was 25 years ago.

Maggie had gotten into a few relationships after the divorce but she never felt that spark she had felt with Tim. She couldn’t stomach the thought of trying and failing again, so she remained single throughout her adult life. She had run into Tim several years after the divorce. He was pushing a stroller and had two kids by his side. He had married Renee and they had three kids with one on the way.  Tim got his wish, and part of her was happy for him, but part of her stung.  She had gone on the get a 2^nd degree in counseling and used it at her local church to talk to couples about infertility. She knew the feelings of loneliness and failure that it could cause. She knew the wedge it could drive between couples, and she wanted to do anything she could to help couples through the experience, so she volunteered her time.  She did the counseling for about 10 years before turning the baton over to another parishioner who had similar experiences and a new degree. 

On Maggie’s 35^th birthday, she decided she wanted to start a non-profit for young, single mothers.  Maggie had lost her feelings of shame and resentment many years ago. She had started participating in kids’ birthday parties of her friends, baby showers at work, and anything else that came her way kid related. Her non-profit idea came to her several years ago when she worked with a young veterinary tech that was a single Mom. She remembers how tired Stacie looked when she came in to work and how hard it was for her to make ends meet. She had minimal help from her family and struggled with daycare, diapers, and formula.  Stacie made too much money to qualify for grants, but not enough to account for the rising cost of everything.  On a few occasions, Maggie would do an anonymous gift card to Stacie’s home address. She also gathered a few of her coworkers together and held a one-year birthday party for Brad, Stacie’s son.  The group managed to gather over $200.00 in grocery cards, a few toys for Brad, and a gift card to the local Scrub store so Stacie had enough work clothes.  She was overwhelmed at the generosity.  Maggie started to ponder how many other woman were in Stacie’s position of barely making ends meet.

It took Maggie many years to pull it together, but she tirelessly worked on donors from local churches, food banks, clothing stores, grocery stores, and real estate groups to pull off her dream of creating The Safe Space. She poured quite a bit of her own savings into the non-profit.  The Safe Space is designed for single Mom’s to get a few extra groceries, diapers, clothes, or a safe place to sleep with their kids.  The older house was redesigned, as a gift from an Architect firm, to house up to 5 occupants’ short term.  There are volunteers that keep the food pantry stocked, the laundry room filled with detergent, and the house clean.  Women, in transition, can come with their kids to have a safe place to stay. They must participate in the housekeeping and cooking, and they must be looking for a job or education to get back on their feet.  It has been really fulfilling for Maggie to see the lives her dream has touched. She has been able to help women get on their feet, she has changed diapers, fed babies, helped with schoolwork, and counseled those that need help through their situations.  Maggie knows that her non-profit never would have happened if her life worked out the way she planned.  That was the funny thing about plans; we think they should work out exactly how we want, but most times they work out the way they should. Adversity and hardships never feel good while we are going through them, but they produce character and determination that can end up helping others through life.