It has been 3 years since I first joined "MyShoes" and Nigel & I are engaged to be married now. As we are beginning to plan our wedding, it is so wonderful to join together our families whom are both interracial but also to gather and share our cultures in this time of excitement. Nigel and I have been really fortunate to have grown up with parents who encouraged us to be ourselves and to truly be proud of all of the heritages of which we're a part. Getting to know his family has also shown me the differences in our families. My parents were divorced when I was a child, however each of them have continued to date interracially. Nigel's parents have remained married all these years. While growing up, my parents had only been friends primarily with other interracial couples. Nigel's parents mainly had friends of monoracial marriages. One prominent similarity between our childhoods was our extreme closeness to our maternal grandfathers whom both of us have lost. Interestingly, both of our grandfathers were very similar in personality and both of them had the bluest eyes. For each of us separately, the loss of them has been the greatest trebulation to overcome. So to have shared our experiences and observations with one another over the years has been really interesting and ironically parallel. We are very curious to see what our children will look like. I am extremely light skinned and Nigel is of a carmel complexion. My father is a warm chocolate tone and my mother a very pale but peach toned woman. Nigel's father is a beautiful deep tone of coffee and his mother a creamy beige or cappucino as I like to call it. Between the two of us we share french, native american, irish, dutch, african-american and afro-carribean american heritage. As we look toward our future together, we also think about how we will teach our children and what support systems we'll offer them. I look so forward to the excitement, that my children will have interracial grandparents to naturally teach them to love and to become accustomed to all the beauty that they are and all the heritage they will cherish. They won't ever be subjected to the family racism that often occurs among relatives in today's society. The african-american grandmother I once was subjected to, faced with the rejection of a love I had always wanted from her but would never receive until her only attempt before leaving this earth. It was then that I was faced with a decision of forgiveness for the perfection I couldn't be and the darker skin color I never was. How could I apologize for being who I was meant to be? Why would I forgive her for hating the child her heritage had created, from the highest form of unconditional love that could not comprehend hatred? It was then that I learned to forgive myself for ever doubting the intention that I had been and the purpose for my existence. I learned to forgive myself for ever believing that who I was, shouldn't have been and that what I looked like should have actually mattered to the people I loved and the people that loved me. I'm still learning to try to forgive her for never realizing the good within me and within my parent's intentions. For letting her wrongs get the best of the good within her and I feel sorry for the fact that she never got to know a wonderful granddaughter. Though I'm still looking forward and I look back only to grow stronger and climb higher. With the good in my life and the truth in my heart, I know I can never go wrong...especially with Nigel beside me.

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