The Best Birthday Present That I Ever Received

In my more than thirty years as a writer, this is by far the most difficult thing I have ever had to write. It is my hope that it will bring a deeper understanding of a person we all knew and loved. There are parts of what I've written here that you may find disturbing, but it is my hope that by shedding some light on Lesly's past, I may help to provide a light at the end of the tunnel for others who are going through what she survived. Please forward this website to everyone you know. If you do, one child may be spared the agony of a tormented life.

The year was 1989. I had recently moved to Las Vegas and a mixture of new and old friends had decided to throw me a birthday party. Just about everyone I knew was there except for one friend working as a cocktail waitress at the old Aladdin hotel. My buddy Gary and I decided to make a night of it and go down to the hotel. While we waited for Allison to finish serving her drinks, Gary and I had a drink and listened to the lounge band. During one of the breaks, an attractive redhead sitting to my right engaged me in conversation. It was a conversation that would not end for twenty years.

What was truly amazing about our friendship was that it grew at all. As I soon learned, Lesly had a basic distrust of people and men in particular. Although very outgoing and gracious, she rarely let anyone get too close. Over time, she told me of growing up in a well-to-do neighborhood in El Paso, Texas. Her father, Frank, was in the fashion business and her mother, Joyce, was a stay-at-home mom. She lived there with her sister and a horse. That horse, later taken from her by her father, would become her friend and confidant during her almost daily rides. He was also responsible for her lifelong love affair with horses and all other animals. To the outside world it was the idyllic, upper-class 60s household. But looks can be deceiving and what happened behind closed doors would change Lesly's life forever. Hers was a homelife of adultery, child abuse and a father who preyed upon Lesly in an effort to satisfy his sick perversions.

The 60s were a time when suspicions of child abuse were spoken of in hushed tones. Child Protective Services did not exist and if you had money and influence, which her father had, almost anything could be covered up. When she tried to tell a neighbor what was happening, she was accused of being mentally unstable and institutionalized for a short time. She never spoke of her homelife to a stranger again. Instead, she became a "stepdaughter" to her godparents, Ted and Verlie Brooks. They became her real parents as far as she was concerned. Her love for them ran deep. Ted was the stereotypical tall Texas car dealer down to his cowboy boots. Upon his death several years ago, all Lesly asked for were those boots.

As I said, it's amazing that we were able to build a trusting relationship from a foundation that was anything but trusting, but we did. We had our ups and downs over the years. There were some things we agreed on and a lot that we did not. There were times when our disagreements would sound downright silly to an outsider and on those occasions, we would invariably hear "So, how long have you two been married?" What kept our friendship going was the fact that we knew each other better than any other people on the planet knew either one of us. Lesly was my best friend, and I will miss her every day of my life.

As a personal tribute to Lesly, I will be creating a foundation in her name. The Marchese Foundation will help adults who were abused as children, deal with the lifelong psychological and physiological effects that come as a result of that abuse.

Mark Jacobson