If we’re lucky, really lucky, someone comes along in our lives at a crucial juncture and guides us on the right path. My time was the spring semester of my junior year, I had transferred to Bolton High from ASH and had all of the “new” kid issues. My parents were divorced, my older brother had been expelled before graduation and I was lost.

Bonnie Toney took me in, under her wing, into her heart and made me a part of her family. It all started at the end of the school year when all the kids got together to celebrate school being out and there I was all alone. “What are you doing after school ends today?” Oh nothing I said. She thought that wouldn’t do and called her son Blake and told him I was coming along with his girlfriend and group after the end of school. I’m sure he groaned, but, as it turned out, not for long.

We all spent the day out on their boat and that was the end of Blake’s current girlfriend. I’ll never know if I was invited because she felt sorry for me or wanted a change in her son’s girlfriend, but either way it worked out.

From there started an anchoring I had never known in my life but had always wanted. Friday nights were spent playing cards and drinking soda, laughing and feeling safe. Weekends were at their camp. Blake and I went off to college together but when i decided to switch schools we broke up.

From college I went off to DC to start my career, staying in touch with the family. Penny taught me to write, filling in the blanks that were left from my erratic childhood. They dubbed me “Little Bit” short for Little Bit of Hellfire, a nickname which has stuck. When Blake was struck with an aneurysm and died so suddenly I got back to Alexandria as quickly as I could. What a terrible, awful tragedy. Blake was only 27, so incredibly young.

No matter where I was in the world working a campaign, I always made it to their house for Christmas. On one of those trips back we were talking and I had a chance to tell Bonnie thank you. “For what Little Bit?” she asked, genuinely surprised. “For believing in me Bonnie, for loving me and for always being there for me.” She just smiled and said “I love you.”

I have wondered more than I have ever said it what would have happened to me if she hadn’t come along. Everyone needs someone to believe in them, everyone needs a champion. Bonnie Toney was mine. She changed my life. Thank you Bonnie, always. Love, Little Bit