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There I was, getting ready to take the largest stage as the Keynote Speaker for The Spring of Tampa Bay.

The Spring of Tampa Bay is a local domestic violence shelter, and that day was their fundraising luncheon so they could continue assisting victims in our area to escape their abusers. As the sound and audio guys were attaching my microphone to the lapel of my jacket, I became slightly nervous. This was not because I was an inexperienced speaker as I had performed many speeches up until that time. It was because I was going to expose him–my father. Expose him for abusing my mother and all four of his children. And I was going to do this on a public stage in front of five hundred people. I had written my speech four times before I felt comfortable with the final version. Although my gut created uncertainty about whether I wanted to broadcast the truth to my audience, I wanted to ignore that message. Even my good friend, Lissette Campos, who was one of my biggest advocates and had dome many domestic violence awareness campaigns with our local ABC action news station, asked me if I was sure that I wanted to reveal this family secret that day. She was a great journalist. But this time, I didn’t want to take her advice. My goal was to bring to light the lifetime effects and havoc of domestic abuse. And I truly wanted to use this stage for that purpose. My mind was made up and I wasn’t ready to go back on my decision. I told her “It was time” and given the most recent incident where my mother showed up at our doorsteps because my father took all her clothes onto the front lawn and threatened to burn them, the time was now. I was minutes away from walking up the stairs to the stage. And exactly at that moment, one of my dearest friends handed me his phone and said, “Nat, Cory needs to speak to you.” I stepped away slightly from the stage and said “Hello? I’m about to take the stage.” My husband stated with a cracked voice, “Your dad is gone.” I couldn’t believe what I heard. Shock and disbelief set in, and the next thing I remember was standing on the carpet to the right of the stage, trembling, while several people surrounding me were trying to help me. I remember crying, “NO! NO! NO!” My entire body was shaking, and I couldn’t stand, much less walk. I never took the stage that day.

The morning of my Keynote speech, my mother called my husband, Cory, and asked him to drive to my childhood home to check on my dad.