Shayne, my oldest child

Its the day after Christmas and i'm filled with an overwhelming sense of calm. Our children were all here with us this year, and to see them all grown up, with their own lives I can only be thankful for how they turned out.

To appreciate my overwhelming sense of pride, it's important that you know what they haveovercome to get to where they are now.

How do you measure what damage was done to people as a result of a series of events? How do you know whether or not certain situations would have arisen regardless of previous events? You don’t. But you can assume and surmise.

I am confident that Shayne’s way of looking at life is a complete and direct result of his childhood; his past that I allowed to happen.

These events have followed him around most of his life.

Shayne was a very happy baby, up until his second year I would say. .

Children are very perceptive. I lived for a long time very stressed and tense. Even if I tried to hide it on the outside, I am sure Shayne could sense it. Stress is one thing that you can’t mask for long, especially if you wear your emotions on your sleve like I do. It shows on your face, mannerisms; the tone of your voice, even the way you hold a child.

Children are finely-tuned instruments when it comes to detecting stress.
The famous machete-crib incident was just the first of what would surely make it almost impossible for him to not carry around a great deal of anger and fear.
My past, my mistakes unfortunately fell hardest on Shayne. Being the oldest he is the one that saw and felt the anger and pain that raged in our home.

I am once again ashamed that I let it go on for so long.

He is my most insecure child, to say the least. Secure in his looks but insecure in every other aspect of his life.

All Shayne ever wanted from a young age was to be liked; to have friends that he could count on. That was not always the case, as children can be hurtful and very mean. That’s just the way it is with kids.

But when you are insecure, it hurts even more.

I can vividly remember a group of kids that lived across the street from us when Shayne was about ten years old. One of the boys was Shayne’s age and not the nicest. He would invite Shayne over to play then send him home if other kids came over.
To watch your child, hiding behind a tree in the front yard, watching the other children playing across the street, knowing that he isn’t wanted, is heart wrenching. There isn’t a damn thing that you can do about it either.

You have to sit back, love them and tell them that things turn around for them.
Shayne finally found his audience and some confidence once he was in the Middle School. School was a place for Shayne to meet with his friends, hold court, meet girls and make people laugh; this is when he felt the most comfortable.

The guys loved his sense of humor, the girls loved his face and the teachers were at a loss as to how to corral his mind on things like school work.

As for school work; homework was rarely if never done. Oh, he knew the material well enough – he just chose not to do it. If he was given a test, he would pass it. If he was given homework, he wouldn’t do it. That was that. Nothing that Matt and I did made any difference.

While Shayne was in Middle School, I spent more time in Mr. Billis’s office than I did at my desk at work. Mr. Billis was the Vice Principal, and we became, what I would consider, almost good friends. I saw him more than my husband some weeks.
I will say that he was fair. When Shayne was on the other end of a misdeed, and both mothers were called in, it was handled fairly. I respected that.

Shayne’s first suspension from school was for fighting; it was in his first year at the Middle school.

That particular incident was one of the ones that Matt and I backed him on. He was being physically picked on at school; items taken from him and broken, punched and pushed.

We advised Shayne that if someone hit him he was to defend himself.
The next time he was pushed around, Shayne struck back. Both boys received detention and the bullying stopped. That was one of the only times that child took our advice.

There ya go!

My life as Shayne’s mother while he was in school consisted of being called in for some infraction or another that Shayne was involved in and visiting the Vice Principle. It got old quick, but you love your children and you do what you have to do.

Drink heavily; oh wait, did I say that out loud? Well, not really, but I did my share of elbow bending during those times.

In high school, Shayne and his best friend Mike would skip school and hang at my house. Or, go to school for a few periods, come to my house and then back to school. They made up their own schedules.

As angry as Matt and I would get at him for his antics, it was comical at times. Matt and I had left the house for work one morning; Shayne had already left for school. Half way up the parkway Matt had to turn around for something he had forgotten.

He pulled in the driveway to find Shayne and Mike hiding behind the garbage cans; it seems Matt's arrival had surprised them as they were on their way back into the house, having left school after only one period.

Matt never let on that he saw them; it was just to rediculous; two big guys crouched down between the rubbage. Amazing.

I should have gotten a job at that school for all the times I was in the Vice Principal’s office. The day he graduated was one of the happiest days of my life for many reasons. I knew that I wouldn’t have to go visit with the VP anymore.

Shayne and Mike were best friends throughout highschool, with Mike spending most weekends sleeping on a pile of clothes on Shayne's floor.

Four years had come and gone and surprisingly, we all survived.

High school graduation in our town is held on the football field, weather permitting. The day started out beautiful; but, with the threat of thunder storms looming over the ceremony, it was ominous to say the least.

When the music began and the graduates started their ceremonial procession, the skies got dark and the rumbling of thunder could be heard in the distance.
Lord forgive me but all I could think of was that it was God showing his anger at Shayne for how he had behaved all through school. My husband and I looked at each other with dread, held our breath and waited for the bolt of lightning to strike.
Needless to say, the graduation went off without a hitch and his life was now about to begin.

Shayne had a vision. Shayne wanted to be a Marine. Because of an injury at the end of his senior year, he wasn’t able to enlist when he wanted to in 1996, the year he graduated, but by 1999 he was healed and ready to go. What an exciting and anxious time for all of us.

We all knew how much Shayne wanted this, but we were apprehensive knowing how much Shayne disliked authority, especially when he thought he was right. We didn’t think it would go over well with his Drill Instructors if he was given an order and he decided he didn’t want to do it. But, being as competitive as he is, we were sure that his pride would prevail and he would come to terms with the life of a recruit.
In the Marines you are not called a Marine until the end of boot camp when you earn your Eagle, Globe and Anchor. Only then are you a Marine. All during boot camp you are a recruit, nothing more and nothing less.

It was funny, when he was preparing to go and a friend of Matt’s and mine happened to call about something entirely different, I mentioned that Shayne was leaving in a week for boot camp at Parris Island. This "friend" said to me. “Don’t worry if he doesn’t make it, it isn’t for everyone”. I was so insulted. This man had not been a Marine, he had been in the Army decades before. What the hell did he know about Shayne or the Marines, for that matter? God I was pissed. Once again Shayne was written off before he even started.

I am well aware that people’s actions dictate how people perceive them, but I am also aware that Shayne did many good things during his time in high school. The few people that seemed to underestimate him the most had children who, on the outside, looked perfect. If their parents only knew what they did behind the scenes, when they weren’t around, they might not have had so much to say about other people’s children.

Guess what? He made it; with flying colors. Our son was a Marine, a United States Marine. When our family went to his graduation, I was filled with such pride. To this day I look at him and the time he spent in the Corps., and I am so proud of him.

His journey up to that point had been difficult to say the least.
Not long after Shayne graduated boot camp and was stationed at Camp Lejeune, NC he proposed to his girlfriend of several years. This proved to be disastrous. Shit, maybe it’s genetic?

We knew that it was too soon for him to take such a big step, and we knew that he should wait. We also knew that this girl and her certifiable mother would prove to be more than Shayne could handle. If we could only have known the extent of their deceitfullness, we might have stood a chance.

I'm sorry to say, we could not persuade him to postpone it and wait at least a year before getting married.

With no other option, we embraced our new daughter in law and planned a wedding.
Three months after the wedding, his bride had moved home and Shayne was alone. Matt, Brittany, Anthony and Madison (our granddaughter who has yet been identified) and I drove down with pots, pans and all the food to cook Shayne and his friends a Thanksgiving dinner.

Shayne was devastated and our family was beyond pissed.

No one can say why or what happened behind closed doors, but the way it was handled by her side caused great stress and bitter feelings on our side. Once more Shayne’s perception of life was tilted by the actions of others.

Once that mess was over and done with, (with the help of a lawyer and a letter threatening a lawsuit against her mother) I can honestly say that Shayne’ four years as a Marine were, I believe, his happiest. He saw and went places he might not have had an opportunity to experience otherwise. He climbed Mt. Fuji, was stationed in Okinawa for a year and got to visit Tokyo. He got his deep water scuba diving certificate in Okinawa also.

When Shayne was at Camp Hansen, Okinawa he was in a class and they were given the assignment to write a paper about the person that they felt exemplified the Corp .values the best. Shayne wrote about his father, Matt. When he read the letter to the class, his Commanding Officer gave him a direct order to call his father back in the States and read him the letter. He thought that it was the finest thing he had ever heard.

With Shayne and Matt’s permission I have included a copy of that letter. After reading it, what else can you say about their relationship? The letter says it all.

Honor, Courage and Commitment

By: Lance Corporal Shayne Santa Lucia, 2002

When I think about those words one person comes to my mind. I think of my dad above all others.

When I was three years old, my mother divorced my biological father because he was a drug addict and an alcoholic and I have never seen him since. My mother got remarried when I was about 9 years old to a man who loved her but more important than that, he loved me and my sister like we were his children.

My whole life it has bothered me that I never knew my biological father, and when ever I wanted to try and find him, Matt was the first one to offer me help no matter how much it hurt him. To pay him back for everything he did for us, when I was about 14, me and my sister had our last names changed to his so that he would always know that we were his children. I think that was the first time I ever saw my dad cry.
Because of those examples and too many more to list, I think of my dad when I think of the core values.

My dad shows Honor by taking on the responsibility of raising my sister and I as if he was our biological father.

He shows Courage by always being there for us when we need him. When I tried to find my biological father, he offered to help, and not because he had to but because it was the right think to do no matter what it did to him inside.

When I was 21, I found out where Gary lived and my dad offered to pay for me to fly down and meet him, even thought I had a job and made enough money to do it myself.

When my parents got married, my dad made a Commitment to my mother that he would be there till death. But, he also made a promise to love my sister and me as if we were his own. No matter how many times we fought with him or how many times we said things to each other that hurt the other one, he always remembered the commitment he made and never went against it.

I have looked up to him my entire life and hope that one day I can be half the man he is.

My father was never a Marine, but yet he lives his life by the Corps values. For this reason, among many others, I have a great deal of respect for him and most of all, being able to tell people that he is my father.

My dad is the one person that comes to mind when I hear those words.


If that didn’t bring a tear to your eye, I don’t know what will.

Writing that letter was a turning point for Shayne in his feelings of abandonment from his biological father. A great deal of the rage that Shayne had held towards Gary was gone. Not all of it, but a lot of it. This was the first step in his healing.

Shayne was finally able to see that nothing he did caused Gary to leave and there was nothing he could have done to make him stay. He also realized that biological or not, Matt was his father and would be until the day he died. Nothing could change that.

Iraq was on the list of places he also went. Shayne was with the 10th Marines when the war started. He was stationed in Kuwait until the war officially started, and his division went through the center of Iraq. He was promoted to Corporal in Bagdad.
His time in Iraq was the most fulfilling. He fell in love with the Iraqi people and felt that the United States was doing what was necessary for our safety and the safety of Iraq. He still does.

Shayne left the Corps. after his four years and it hasn’t been an easy transition for him. His dream is to become a police officer in a large city. This was not to be the case. His life would take him on many broken roads before he was to find his true path.

Of the many relationships that Shayne has had; ranging from disastorous to almost perfect to down right dangerous, I believe that they all had to happen for him to come to the place in his life where he is now.

Shayne has found his soulmate, his career and his confidence.