50. Halee Beckstead Watters ON: Reuniting with her mother years after she had given up custody. She shares a powerful story of Survival and Forgiveness. Halee and Mom Cori are now best of Friends!

Halee is an incredibly strong woman who faced more as a young girl than most do in a full length lifetime. This is a really neat episode as her mother, Cori Valdez, was on Episode 35, and her wife Chelsea Watters was on Episode 25, so if you would like to here the version on both sides of the story it is absolutely worth it listening to both of them share.

 

 

Both Halee and Cori share their experiences with their very own Pain, Shame, and Challenges that their separation brought into their lives.  She is an incredibly strong woman and has had to be even as a little girl to survive what she has been through. As you listen in to her share her experiences you will see clearly that she had no choice but to "roll with the punches" for the majority of her youth. Moving from apartment to apartment, never really having a place of her own to call home, and the divorce of her parents at an early age, didn't provide Halee with much opportunity for security and structure in her life.

 

 

This is when Tragedy struck... Halee's mother Cori was beaten nearly to death in a church parking lot by her Step Father, who left her to die. By the Grace of God a Father and Son out for a walk later that night saw Cori laying on the ground and called 911. You can imagine the Trauma this would bring not only to Cori, but also to Halee. Because of this event and the pain Cori endured she became addicted to drugs to help her cope, and her life became unmanageable to the point that she felt she had to sign away her rights to Halee and her little sister. Halee describes the last time that she ever saw her mother as a young girl and how she watched her walkaway for what could have easily been forever. Halee was so young she didn't know how to process feelings of abandonment and as young children do, she held onto hope that one day she would be with her mom again, but the pain was there and it was real as she often wondered why she wasn't good enough for her mother to return into her life.

 

 

Hearing Cori's Episode and being able to feel and understand the pain that she was going through, and feeling unaccepted even by her own family, makes this story incredibly compelling. It is nothing short of a miracle that Halee and Cori were able to reunite years later. After hearing both sides to the story, I believe that both of them manifested hope that they would be reunited one day even though they didn't know how it was possible. Never doubt the faith and hope of a little child. Years later as Halee's grandmother was in the hospital nearing death and as she went to the hospital to say her goodbye's, her mother Cori, out of respect, communicated to Halee through a family member that she would leave out of respect, and Halee's empathetic response to that truly shows that she had wisdom beyond her years as a result of enduring so many heavy and difficult things. She let her family know that her mom should stay and that she would come anyway. A short time later Haylee found herself standing face to face with her mother, and the feeling that overwhelmed her and her mother was love and a sense of longing to be together again. Haylee said Forgiveness came immediately, and she didn't even have to think about it. Cori and Halee are now best of friends, they truly love each other and have each others backs always. They have been able to hear each others stories, process the pain they both dealt with, and come together in love to be a family again.

 

 

I am so grateful to know Halee. She is an incredible person and has such a kind, good, and compassionate heart, that said, this is another of the countless examples I have seen in my life, how a persons trials, challenges, and pain create a tender heart and an empathetic soul capable of showing up for others when they are hurting.

 

 

Halee, you are incredible, I am inspired by your strength, your faith to keep going. We live in a world that tells us "Nice people finish last", but your story is a witness that this idea is completely false... You are as kind a person as I have met, and because you held onto hope and love rather than bitterness and anger, things shifted in your world causing miracles to happen around you, bringing healing into you and your mothers life, love into your own, and the sense of belonging that we all hope for during our lives on earth. Way to go! Thank you for sharing your story with us and for inspiring me and so many. I am better because of the opportunity to learn from you.