We sat in the booth facing each other, and we both started to cry. You see, my friend, like myself, was not a pot smoker and she had smoked a little as well. So here we were. Technically, two teenage girls that had never before smoked marijuana and assuring each other that we were dying! Realistically, we were two stoned girls that hadn't a clue of how marijuana could affect you if you had never smoked it before. Paranoid, that's what we actually were. Aside from the smoldering invisible flames in my chest and the horrible dizziness that had overcome me, I also developed severe nausea. Looking back to that time now I know that the paranoia is what caused the nausea, but sitting in that booth that day I just knew it was the wrath of God! I remember my friend and I sat, holding hands across the table and we prayed, "Dear God! PLEASE don't let us die!! Please God! We will never smoke pot again!! Never!"

After a few minutes some kids from school joined us in the back of this pizza place. The pizza place that on this particular Sunday afternoon in November of 1988, every single kid from my high school was gathered. Well, maybe not every kid, but at that time it seemed as if they were all there. The day turned into one of the most humiliating of my high school years. I got sick. That's right, I got sick all over the pizza place in front of massive crowd of high school kids as well as families that were trying to enjoy lunch with their kids. My body felt paralyzed and the next thing I knew, I was surrounded by the police and paramedics. I had to be carried out of the mall on a stretcher and my friend and I were taken, by ambulance, to the emergency room. Utter humiliation that turned into terrible guilt by the evening.

At the hospital, they diagnosed the two of us as being high. That was it, the official medical diagnosis. Two high teens that apparently could not handle being high. By the time my parents arrived, my friend and I were laying on stretchers side by side in the emergency room laughing at all that had happened that day. The laughter ended abruptly when my father walked in, bent his face down to my head, and told me what an embarrassment I was to him. I will say that after that day, I smoked pot one other time in my life and that was when I was 21. By then, I assumed I would be fine if I just took a couple hits from a joint. I was not fine that time either and became paranoid yet not nearly like the time when I was 17. After that, I decided that marijuana was not for me and I never touched it again. While I honestly have no problem with others smoking it, and I think it has excellent medical benefits, I personally choose not to even try it to see if it would affect me differently. I unfortunately know how it affected me back then, and I have no desire to experience anything like that again.

So, there I was in the hospital at 17 listening to my father tell me what a total disappointment and embarrassment I was to the family and quite frankly, every word of disdain towards me went in one ear and out the other. I didn't care what my father said. Not about this incident or anything else in my life. My grandmother called me that night and she cried. She blamed herself for me smoking pot. You see, she gave me money that day so I could spend it at the mall and she thought I used it to buy the pot. I remember her crying on the phone when she spoke to me and it really made me realize how my actions had affected her. We thankfully moved on from that incident, but I will never forget how horrible I felt when I realized my grandmother placed the blame on herself.

My grandmother and I stayed close even after I was an adult and had moved out of my parent's home. I still spent time with her and called her as often as possible. In 1993 I moved out of state to go to school and travel. I still kept in touch with my grandmother through phone calls and letters. In 1997, my father passed away and thus began the downfall of my immediate family. Within a year of his passing, everything I knew about family ceased to exist in a way. My aunt and cousin on my father's side decided that the important factors about my father's death included his life insurance and material possessions and they confronted my mom about that in a not so friendly way. The odd thing is that when my father was alive, he never liked his older sister or my cousin. As a matter of fact, any chance he got he would tell horrid stories about growing up with my aunt and relayed to my immediate family how he abhorred the woman. My aunt and cousin ended the family relationship with my mom when my cousin tossed a glass in my mother's face during an argument over my father's personal property.

I lived in another state at the time, and when my mom called me and told me what happened, I of course called my cousin and yelled at her over what she did to my mom. That phone call ended any relationship I would ever have with that side of the family as well. Once I yelled at my cousin, it was like an avalanche and I was piled under its monstrous path. First, my great aunt, my grandmother's twin sister, removed me as well as my brother and mom from her will. No big deal as I could truly care less about gaining financially from another person's death. As a matter of fact, when my father died, I gained nothing other than a sock. Yes, I said a sock. The week before he passed away I was standing at the foot of his bed as he lay there connected to a constant morphine drip, and I noticed that his sock, which had a hole in the heel, was dangling from his foot. I pulled the sock off and for some reason I slipped it into my pocket. I meant to toss it in the laundry when I left the room, but nearly a month later after I had returned to Florida, I reached into my jacket pocket and there was that sock. I washed it, and for the last 18 years that tattered sock has always remained in my own sock drawer. I returned to Florida two days before my dad passed away and I didn't return home for his funeral. I said my goodbyes when I came home the week before he passed, and quite honestly, I just couldn't handle returning to see him buried. This action hurt my grandmother and enraged my father's sister and his niece, my cousin. My father's sister contacted me to tell me to stay away from my grandmother. Of course, I argued with her about that. After all, this is my grandmother and that witch had no right to tell me not to contact my own grandmother.