[OnyxCougar]

As a junior in high school, I met a young man named Steven. We started dating, and were on again, off again until I ended up "going out" with his best friend, Travis.

Got pregnant at 16, married Travis at the insistance of my mother. She kicked us out 2 weeks later, and now, homeless, we made the decision to give him up for adoption to Travis' aunt and uncle. I delivered at his aunt's house at age 17.

Divorced Travis after 2 years of emotional and physical abuse, got myself back together, started talking to Steven again while he was in the Navy. We had plans to get together when he came off west pac, but I didn't have a way to get to San Diego at the time, and wasn't home when he called. He never called back.

20 months later I had remarried and moved to England, got a phone call from a detective in Oregon. They had arrested Travis on murder charges. Steven had been reported missing Christmas of 91 by his grandma in Pennsilvania (he was from Erie), and in 1995 Travis (and his uncle, Ron) finally admitted to torturing him, killing him, dismembering him and spreading his parts across a half mile radius behind his house.

After giving me this information, they asked if I wanted Justin (my son) back, since they knew he didn't belong to Ron and his wife. I said yes, and went to Oregon to get him back. He was 7 then.

Talking to Steven's grandmother after the fact, she told me that he had called her told her he was leaving in 3 days to visit her, and was stopping by my house on the way to propose to me. He was cutting the ties to Travis' family, and wanted a fresh start with me. They killed him the day before he was to leave.

There's lots more to the story, but the point is that Steven's death is the point I realized that life sucks.