Tits Up In A Ditch

I thought the short story "Tits Up In A Ditch" was a very interesting read for a number of reasons. The first thing about the story that caught my attention was the tragic series of events that set the stage for the entire story. Dakotah clearly had some stroke of luck (as her grandpop would say) when she was abandoned by her mother and left to the care of her grandparents, who unwillingly "counted the grandchild as a difficulty that had to be met." Although Dakotah's grandparents raised her to the best of their ability, it was clear that she lacked the love that any child deserves. Dakotah mentions later in the story that her grandfather did not touch her in a loving way until she returned home after he had killed her son. This fact surprised me because only a few pages earlier we learned that Verl was very affectionate with his grandson. It was evident from Dakotah's reclusive demeanor that she had not been properly socialized as a child. This issue seemed to stay with her throughout most of her life, as she seemed to internalize most of her problems.
This point is connected with the next element of this story I found interesting: Dakotah's battle with her sense of self. When Dakotah dropped out of high school to marry a boy she only had teenage feelings for, she seemed to doom herself to a hopeless future. She ends up taking a job as a waitress at a truck stop because she did not know what else to do with herself. After months of a nagging relationship, her marriage is soon terminated when her husband departs for the Army, leaving behind a pregnant, wet-behind-the-ears, soon-to-be mother. When her boy is born, Dakotah turns the parental responsibilities over to her grandparents because she realizes she is unfit to raise her own child. She soon finds her calling as an Army medic, but eventually changes her profession to military police. All these alterations within her life can be seen as Dakotah's journey of finding her own identity in the world. She seemed to be lost in a world that always treated her as inferior, but through her self-searching, she was able to establish some sort of selfhood.