Just Joe – A mother's pride and joy.

Making the most difficult of decisions can never be easy. Life presents options and you simply, or as it goes ... not so simply, choose the option you feel is in the best interest of all who may be involved, or so one would hope.

Jenny was seventeen when she first met Harry. Harry had been only a few months older. He was perfect, as far as Jenny was concerned ... Harry was everything a guy should be. Gentle, caring, loving, his rugged gook looks were the icing on the cake; he completely swept her off her feet.

They were married within two years of meeting one another, and thirteen months after that they became parents to a healthy boy. Everything was great; in fact, everything was better than great. A job promotion for Harry meant a move to a new city and this would be something the family could see as a more than pleasant challenge than anything else.

Six months after becoming a mother, perfection would turn to disaster, Jenny's dream existence turned into a nightmare. An accident at work cost Harry his life. His death was instant; he never had a chance at survival. How could Jenny now raise a child on her own and deal with losing the love of her life, in a new place to boot with hardly a new friend made?

Truth is that she couldn't. With no job of her own, Jenny could not afford to keep the home she and Harry had built together, so what more could she do other than move back in with her parents and this is when it hit and hit hard.

Each day became more and more difficult to get up out of bed, crying would take up most of her day, every day for quite some time. With health worries of their own, Jenny's parents couldn't take on the responsibilities of raising a child, the odd day here and there would be fine but anything more ... well, it's not ideal.

Jenny had no siblings and Harry's family were all so far away. A time would come for the most difficult of decisions to be made. Going away to get the help she needed was not the difficult decision, what would happen to Joe, her only son; this would be the difficult decision which would need attention.

A young couple the next town over would adopt Joe. They assured Jenny that her son would never need for anything; he would receive the very best upbringing possible. In the years since, Jenny never had a more difficult a decision to make; giving up her son was the hardest thing she ever had to do.

Jenny was so nervous, making her way to a place which would go on to become somewhere of importance. It had been so long since she had seen Joe in person, and he would be at this place of importance. A newspaper article promised the event of the year at the city Civic Theatre. Opening night of a new show ... already being hailed as the best thing to come to the city in a long time, staring a young local actor who goes by the stage name of 'Just Joe', Jenny had no doubt as to whom this eighteen-year-old actor actually is.

She had an aisle seat about halfway back and her attention hardly left the stage. Joe was fantastic, the spitting image of his father in almost every way possible, the very same rugged good looks. No doubt, this was the child she had given up all those years ago.

When the after-show applause settled, Jenny would be approached by a lady she would recognize, the woman who had adopted Joe. The lady and her husband had clearly held up their promise, and this lady had a new promise to make.

'If you ever want to meet him, just say and it will be arranged ...'

Sometimes the most difficult choices are never easy to make but when it comes down to it, we have got to do what we have got to do ...