There’s no straight line that connects one’s development from a headstrong, impatient young adult into a well-rounded, focused grown-up.
But for those who are able to understand the process and ultimately see it through, the rewards can be plentiful and the missteps ultimately forgotten, or at least minimized.
Samantha Rose (Carangelo) Murray can happily attest to that.
Now the proud owner of her own bridal glam business in Lebanon, Tasi Rose and Co., Samantha is married to her best friend, fellow Lebanon Catholic hoops alum Jarred Murray, and is a soon-to-be mother of two. Samantha, now in her early 30s, has come a long way from the struggles of her late teens and 20s.
During those years, she was focused on things like making a name for herself as a makeup artist and doing it far away from her hometown. There was also a most unfortunate relationship with a boyfriend who heaped both emotional and physical abuse on the former LC sharpshooter.
She’s not the first to suffer some missteps on the road to adulthood. But few have righted their ship as impressively as Murray, something she reflected on while grabbing a bite to eat with her husband at A&M Pizza last week.
“Young and dumb, let’s start with that,” she said bluntly, summing up her early post-high-school experience. “I was very angry, and I was kind of out to prove something to literally anyone and everyone, especially here. I kinda just had a chip on my shoulders. I did everything to get away from here.”
A fractured relationship with her father, with whom she had little contact during her high school hoops days at Lebanon Catholic – during which she became a career 1,000-point scorer along with younger sister Hailey and mom Anne-Marie – contributed to some of her anger and anxiousness to leave her hometown in favor of nearby but far different cities like Harrisburg and Lancaster. She also struggled to find her way in other aspects of life.
She started out as a nursing major at Alvernia University in Reading before quickly choosing another path as an education major at Millersville. Sam spent much of her non-classroom time working as a bartender. It was a fairly understandable period of rebellion, at least it began that way.
“I think everybody growing up in Lebanon, being here all their life, goes through that stage,” Jarred said. “Being young it’s like, ‘Ah, there’s gotta be more, there’s gotta be better.'”
“I was kind of all over the place, really,” she said. “I was on my own from 18 until I was 32. I was all over the place. But he (Jarred) got me to come back here.”
Indeed, it was Jarred, the love of her life intermittently since they were in 6th grade, who set Sam on her current path to a devoted wife, mother, and savvy, committed businesswoman.
Not that it was in any way easy, not even close. In fact, it actually took a previously unimaginable global pandemic to bring Sam and Jarred together again.
“We were always kind of in contact,” Jarred said. “But the big one was COVID. When COVID happened, no one knew what was going on. For us, being in the industries we’re in, they shut us down completely. We had no answers, nothing.”
Though they temporarily lost their life’s work — Jarred is a successful barber and manager of Himmy’s Barber Shop in Lebanon — the two found they still had a connection that began as kids playing hoops at South 6th Street Playground in Lebanon.
“It kinda came full circle,” Jarred said, “because we met at 6th Street. Her grandmother lived right next to it. Now, we actually bought that house and live there. So, to say we’ve come full circle is definitely an understatement.”
But before she and Jarred could eventually connect again and start their lives together, Samantha had plenty of baggage to rid herself of in the form of the aforementioned abusive relationship she struggled to remove herself from.
Today, she talks frankly about that time and all that led up to it, but it wasn’t so easy to accept in the moment.
“A lot of people deal with it, but no one really talks about it,” she said. “It was abusive in literally every aspect.”
And as much as he felt for her and what she was dealing with, Jarred could not help her the way she needed to be helped because he was in a committed relationship at the time.
It was a wrenching situation for both, but fortunately Sam, with the help of her faith in God, pulled herself up and decided to become a survivor.
“It was just a crazy time. I was completely heartbroken,” she said, while Jarred remembered it as being “as bad as it gets. It was very difficult to know what was going on and not being able to do anything about it.”
As often happens in such cases, Samantha had also pushed away many of the people in her life who wanted to help, and as a result, she felt very alone and isolated and convinced that her boyfriend would eventually kill her if she stayed with him.
The turning point came during an encounter with a police officer who knew of her situation and encouraged her to escape it, followed by the memorable night she took her life back with the help of a mysterious voice that cut through the desperate silence in her home as her boyfriend slept. Only to Samantha, the voice wasn’t that mysterious because it came from on high.
“There has been probably a handful of times in my life where it was 100 percent God,” she said. “And getting out of that situation was 100 percent Him.
“I remember it was Halloween, and I had like 30-35 voicemails of him while I was at work threatening me. Just craziness, complete craziness. He was a drinker. … Just craziness. I was hysterical the whole way home, ugly sobbing, yelling, praying. Because I knew if I walked in that house, he was going to kill me.
“And at that point, I didn’t have anybody, and we lived together, so I was like, ‘Where am I gonna go?’ I had no place to go. I had to go home.”
Thankfully, a random encounter with police outside her home later that night gave Samantha the courage she needed to escape the threat for good.
“I remember he came up to me, and he said, ‘Listen, I have daughters. I don’t know your situation, but I know what’s going on, and you need to get out. You need to leave.'”
She didn’t leave instantly, but that encounter with the officer set Samantha on the course she’s still on to this day.
“That was the first time I didn’t feel alone and everything was okay,” she said. “But it took a little bit (before she left).”
“I remember the day I left,” she said. “I was in the bathroom, I think I was doing my hair, and he was asleep. It was just us two in the house. And I’m sitting there in the room, and I hear this voice — a male voice — clear as day, saying ‘Leave.’ And I was like, ‘Yo, what was that?'”
“I sprinted to my car and drove home, and that was it.”
And really it was. There have been some zig and zags since then, and there will likely be some more in the future. But Samantha Rose Murray is back home for good, doing what she loves with Tasi Rose, named for her grandmother, and helping young women enjoy their weddings and lives to the fullest.
And most importantly, she’s doing it with “her person” Jarred and son Jahsai by her side (with another son on the way).
“I was never okay with just staying down,” she said. “I was like, ‘I’m gonna get back up, and it’s gonna suck.’ Especially when you’re going through something traumatic. It’s gonna be hard. But I was never okay with staying down. I just wasn’t.”
“My life has literally done a 180 — everything, the way I talk, the way I dress, even the way I portray myself. I just never felt like I was good enough. I never felt like I deserved it.”
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