A Christmas Miracle Part 3

With these new leads and a possible location, Robin began scouring the internet for contact information. With each name found, she would go to Facebook and search. Many hours were spent trying to find some connection to them. Finally, on December 18, on a people search site, she found someone with another brother's name, N.M.  The site listed several family member's names along with his. Thankfully, one of them had a Facebook account that was easily accessible. A quick scan through the "Friends" list revealed a K.M, the very same K.from the My Space pictures!

Robin sent the Facebook link to Diane. Overwhelmed with so many emotions, Diane sent a private message to K. After not getting a response and determined not to lose this opportunity, she took the risky chance of posting a few pictures on his wall.



One of those, was a picture of three little boys. The picture of him with his older brothers was familiar, and removed some of the doubt he had. He sent a response to Diane and they arranged a phone call. For the first time in her life, at 52 years of age, she spoke to her brother. As soon as that conversation ended there was a flurry of activity on Facebook with family connecting for the very first time.

Robin had to wait a couple of days to make her call because all she could do was cry every time she thought about talking to her brother. How wonderful it was for her to finally hear his voice and talk to him after all of these years. Emotions are still very raw and conversations with the other two brother's are waiting to be had, (they don't do Facebook). It will happen in time. There is so much for them to process.

This is where the story gets even more complicated because it is not mine to tell. So it must be told with great care out of respect for the brothers, their mother and the new relationships. (The fact that I am not a story teller or writer also complicates the matter greatly.)

K. was quite stunned to get this message from Diane and he was very confused! For you see, they had never known anything about their father or his whereabouts, the M. family or the name they carry, least of all, the fact that they had three older siblings. That thought had never crossed their minds. Their mother had refused to speak a word to them about it.

It has been shared that these boys grew up longing to know their father. They had a very difficult childhood and many are the emotional wounds they bear. It seems that they have gone to great lengths searching for their dad, and like the searches for them, they always came up empty handed. The impenetrable secrecy and unanswered questions have haunted them their entire lives.

From the responses read and heard, it is known that many prayers have been prayed over the years, both for them and by them, for answers to their many questions so that their hearts could be healed from the scars and wounds of childhood.

While the members of the M. family are thrilled that K, N, and A  have finally been found, the real Christmas miracle is theirs. It is not by chance that these boys have never been forgotten or that family felt compelled to find them. No, they needed desperately to be found, and to be told that they had family all of these years that loved them and had searched for them! They needed to know that they were never forgotten.They needed to know about their dad and they needed closure and healing.

To be found was a "Christmas Miracle" indeed!

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Thank you all for reading this and for your comments. It has been a very emotional few days. I wasn't sure how to write this story so that you could keep the people involved straight. I also needed to make it less personal as it was emotionally draining to do this.

We are so thankful for this opportunity to get to know our brothers and their families. Plans are already being made to see each other face to face. My brother Mike is very sick with his cancer and treatments and our three brothers are very anxious to meet him and offer him encouragement. If I can't make it down to Alabama when they go, they plan to come here to see me on their way back to New York. I look forward to seeing them face to face!.

While our parents, (whom we all love dearly),  made some very bad choices that hurt us deeply as children and even as adults. We are moving forward and, with God's help, we will allow good to come from their mistakes.Uniting this family somehow rights at least part of the wrongs.

Thank you for reading our story!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas!

A Christmas Miracle Part 2

Betty's children grew up, married and started having children of their own. Betty's daughter, Robin, kept the cherished picture of the three little boys and often thought of them, wondering where they were. While living in Memphis, Tennessee she once had a coworker whose desk was next to hers with the same first and last name, (K.M.), as one of her brothers. It wasn't him, she had to ask of course, but every day she had the reminder, the nagging reminder, of family lost.

                                                                       
At the M. family reunions the boys were mentioned and missed, especially by their grandparents. A mystery that hung like a dark cloud over otherwise joyous occasions.

The beloved grandparents eventually passed away, but the boys were still not forgotten. An aunt and cousin, along with their half-sisters continued to periodically search for them.

Years passed and the invention of social networking was a welcome blessing for the dispersed M. family. How wonderful to keep in touch and get daily glimpses into each others lives and to see pictures of children and grandchildren.

Periodically they would search the social networking sites trying to find the three brothers, but they always ended up empty handed. In 2009 there was even talk among the sisters and their cousin of hiring a private investigator to see if they could locate them.

December 13, 2011, the older sister, Diane, was once again searching the internet for her brothers and happened upon a people search site with a listing for a K.M. in New York, it also listed relatives that just happened to have the same names as the other two brothers. It also gave the name of a woman along with phone numbers. What were the odds that there could be three other M. men with the very same first names? Excited by this break, she did more searching and found a My Space page that she believed might belong to K.M.'s wife. It wasn't current but there were family pictures! Diane posted the My Space link on her Facebook. Robin went to the pictures and immediately knew that she was finally looking at the face of her long lost brother!

He looked so much like their dad, Jimmy and brother, Mike! Believing it was their K. Diane tried the phone numbers that were listed but none of them were current. Another frustrating dead end...

To be continued...

A Christmas Miracle

Many years ago, a young fifteen year old girl, named Betty,  married her sweetheart, Jimmy. It has been told that he had moved from Louisiana to California and her mother was afraid that she might run off and elope with him. She asked Betty if she loved Jimmy and wanted to marry him. She said yes and it was quickly arranged.

Because they were so young and he had a penchant for alcohol, (and women), their relationship was rather tumultuous.

  Much to the heartbreak of the doting grandparents and family, the marriage ended after five years.

With three young children Betty left Jimmy and went to live with her parents in Alabama.

Shortly thereafter, Betty met and married James. She despised Jimmy and never wanted him to see his children again. She talked James into adopting her three children so they would have his name instead. It has been told that Jimmy loved his children and didn't want them to be adopted but because he was a poor man, he had no means to hire a lawyer and fight it. So it was that the M. children took on the G. name.

Those three children never got to see their dad again. Oh, not that he didn't try!  Desperate to see them on at least two different occasions he showed up when he knew the children were in town, (once at his own sister's home), only to have them whisked away by their mom as if he were a monster about to devour them! The children were smart enough to know that wasn't the case, even at such a young age, they could see the love and pain in his eyes. They knew he loved them.

Eventually, Jimmy met Annette and started a new life. They had three boys together.

At some point, shortly after this picture of the boys was taken, a very unusual thing happened, the picture was sent to Betty's home by Grandma M. It was quickly discarded into a box of pictures, only to be retrieved by a half-sister who felt a curious bond with the little boys of her father and his new wife.

Still having a problem with alcohol, Jimmy and Annette also had a tumultuous marriage. One day, Annette vanished with their three boys, never to be seen or heard from again by anyone in the M. family.

While Jimmy had a problem with alcohol, the rest of the M. family were a loving and devout Christian family. They dearly loved all of Jimmy's children and even though they only saw Betty's children once every few years, those children knew they were cherished and adored. They could feel it to the depths of their soul, because it was the only time they ever felt that type of love. Sitting on that grandmother's lap, head to her chest, and hearing her muffled voice through ears covered in a tight embrace is a cherished memory imprinted on the heart forever.

The children grew older and one day they got a call that their dad, Jimmy, had died from smoke inhalation in a house fire. Arrangements were made and the children were allowed to go to their dad's funeral. The M. family had tried so hard to locate Annette to let her children know about their father, but they still could not find them. Jimmy was laid to rest with pictures of his six children that he never had the opportunity to know.

To be continued...

Much to be Thankful For

There is so much that I would like to say during this Thanksgiving season, but finding words to express it is quite difficult. I know I will fall far short of expressing what I am feeling. Sadly, I've never been much of a writer, but even less so now. It is a tremendous effort to focus and organize my thoughts these days.Thinking of what to say, how to say it and how to word it in a grammatically correct way becomes a contemptuous chore. Which has been part of the reason for my infrequent posts; it has been easiest to say nothing at all.

For the last eight months my husband has been unemployed. The first time he was laid off, (after fifteen years with a wonderful company and a job he loved), was devastating, but to face the trauma of multiple company layoffs over the last six years has been a nightmare that is incomprehensible to us. After this latest layoff we feared that the career he had worked so hard to establish was completely ruined because his work history looked so unstable. Most companies, if they are even hiring, would just pitch a resume like that.While it took eight very long months and many resumes sent, a new job was started on Monday last week. For this new opportunity we are so very thankful.

Our hearts are overflowing with gratitude and thanksgiving for God's provision for us during this time of extended unemployment. Our two adult children, who both still live at home, have full-time jobs and graciously contributed. Our nineteen year old son delayed college and donated practically his entire paycheck, with no complaints. With their help, my odd jobs and unemployment benefits we have been able to stay caught up on our bills. There was no money for extras and there have been many struggles along the way, but, by God's grace, we have survived the storm...again.Were it not for our precious children things would be very different for us right now. We are very blessed.

It is also with heartfelt gratitude that I thank each of you for your patience with me during this time of sporadic blogging. Losing my mom, dealing with multiple job loss and all the emotions and struggles that encompasses, and my mother-in-law's end stage Alzheimer's...well sometimes just coping with life is all you can manage.

I hope things will settle down now and this extended season of trials will end for our family and hopefully after a time of stability and emotional healing my mental fog will lift and my creativity will flourish.

Speaking of creativity, during the past few months, I have given much thought to this blog and the direction I want to take it. After all that I have been through, with the multiple job loss and this extended season of difficult trials,  I sometimes think about posting on topics regarding that, but my blog has been mostly nature and gardening related and it felt weird to do so. There are more home projects that I have done that I would like to share, but again, I feel funny posting them here.

After one such post, someone suggested to me that I might want to start another blog for things not related to my normal topics so that my readers wouldn't be surprised to see something out of character for Robin's Nesting Place. That was a great idea and I attempted to start another blog but I can barely manage one much less two or three.

I think I've come to the conclusion, that for right now, during this season of my life, I will just post whatever it is that I want to blog about, right here, at Robin's Nesting Place. My desire is to keep the blog as a hobby blog but that definitely encompasses many topics, including photography; crafts; home projects; gardening; cooking: bird watching; thrifting and things related to living on a tight budget and anything else related to home and garden. It really isn't that much different from what I've been doing, just more broad which should lead to more frequent posts that will hopefully still appeal to my readers and maybe even grow my blog a bit more. Guilt/pressure/stress free blogging is all I can creatively manage right now.

I hope that is okay and those of you who have become my blogging friends these last four years will continue to read and follow. I appreciate you all!

Happy Thanksgiving!

One Year Ago Today

One year ago today life, as I knew it, changed forever. My precious mother died a horrible death at the hands of the surgeon who botched her surgery and the nurses who overdosed her on morphine, not once, but twice. She eventually died from the pneumonia that was caused when they realized their mistake and flushed her so rapidly that her lungs were filled with fluid. It still stings to know that she should not have died from a case of diverticulitis.

My mother was the glue that held our diverse, dispersed and somewhat dysfunctional family together. After her death a lot of things changed. People changed, relationships changed...things happened that I never thought I would see in my own family. Family hurting family... it just should not be that way.

Something happens deep inside when the people you love the most cause so much pain and heartache, especially when you are already dealing with great loss and horrible tragedy. Basic trust in mankind is greatly damaged and you have to work really hard to trust people again, to heal emotionally and not become bitter.

It has been a difficult year of hard work trying to heal those deep wounds. I have read a lot, prayed often, and listened to probably a hundred sermons on trials and forgiveness. I've made a lot of progress, but I'm not completely there yet. It is a continual work.

Progress has also been made in some of the damaged relationships but things will never be the same. Some relationships will probably never be restored, I have grieved those losses and have come to terms with that. Some things are simply out of my hands.

I struggle at times with being transparent and real, especially about things of such a sensitive nature. The last thing I want is to stir things up and create more trouble, but this has been the reality of my life this past year. God has been so faithful to me during this very dark year of pain and heartache. I have been amazed at the times that God has allowed me to stumble upon the very thing I needed to hear. He has been a healing balm for my soul. I can't imagine going through the pain of this life without my faith in God and hope of eternal life in heaven.Of seeing my mom again and having real restoration and healing once and for all. Oh, glorious day!

Graduation

Saturday, May 21, 2011 my son graduated from high school! We participated in the Indiana statewide homeschool graduation ceremony.



After sixteen years of homeschooling, we are closing that chapter of our lives. Home education was definitely the right choice for our family. I am so thankful for the opportunity and privilege that we had to spend these last sixteen years together, learning at home.


                                                                       My precious children, Joshua and Jamie

Congratulations Joshua!

Mosaic Monday and a Family Update

I spent some time yesterday playing with my camera. It seems that no matter how many pictures I take there is still more to learn about my camera and even what is appealing to the eye. So I read and practice trying to gain knowledge and skill.

The pie pumpkins above were accidentally grown in my compost pile from last year's pumpkins.


I found the sweet little nest on the ground in our neighborhood common area and I have been collecting acorns while on my walks.


I got this old weather worn desk drawer at a garage sale for a dollar; I loved the look of the aged wood. Do you see what is attached to the nest? It is the sack of a bagworm. I wonder what kind of bird made this soft little nest.



When I last blogged I mentioned that things were not going very well for my family. My husband had just been laid off for the fourth time in five years. The first three times was while he was working in the RV industry. He'd had a very successful career with one company for 15 years when the poor economy caused that company to file bankruptcy. He got jobs quickly but each one of the companies fell victim to the poor economy and had layoffs.

The last job he had was with a well-known company in medical sales. We thought that he finally might be safe from economic woes and have some job stability in a different field, but that wasn't the case.

It has been so difficult and heart breaking to see my sweet husband going through this again. There were so many people with this company who were hired during the same time frame as my husband, many of them were coming from layoff situations too. My husband has talked to quite a few of them and he feels so bad for them. It is almost as if companies hire people, use them for a while and then toss them aside with no care or thought for the people and how these job losses affect them and their families. The way this particular company handled this was absolutely horrible, thoughtless and corrupt. It was shocking!

I actually feel more sorry for those who remain than the ones that got laid off. They got their already low pay cut in half, their car allowance has ended and they are doing the additional work of those who were let go. They are also bound to a non-compete contract and can't look for jobs in their field. They are being used and abused.

For the last few weeks my time has been spent encouraging my husband and quite frankly it has been spent in earnest, fervent prayer. The only time I felt true peace was in my quiet time place reading and journaling through the Psalms and praying. I don't know what I would do were it not for the LORD to help me through these difficult days/months/years.

Thankfully God heard our prayers and my husband will start on his new job on Tuesday. How this job came about and the story behind it is amazing and we know it was God who provided.

The news gets even better! Our daughter recently finished college and was job searching too. She just got a great job and will start November 1. Her graduation ceremony is next Saturday and we just found out that she is Salutatorian for her class. That news made this homeschool mom very proud! It seems that when we homeschool we have more to prove and the success of our children is personal and very sweet!

After so many bad things have happened, we are very thankful for these wonderful blessings.



Now that we have that little business out of the way, I'll show you the next group of pictures.

I don't know why, but I love old things. I always have. I am happy that now with upcycling and recycling trends and the poor economy that old stuff is in style and very popular. I never follow decorating trends but this is one that suits me.



My home is filled with family treasures from my husband's parents and grandparents. I have also found things at garage sales and Goodwill.

The bowl with the eggs was passed down from my husband's grandparents. It is a set of three.

Here are some collages I created using different color techniques. The one above just has the colors desaturated to give it a bit of a vintage feel. One of these days I want to try my hand at some of the textures that are available. Like I said at the beginning of this post, there is always more to learn.


Here is the black and white version...



and lastly, the sepia tone.

Thank you all for reading this blog and for your sweet comments. I appreciate you all and thank you for your prayers and your encouragement during this time of trials. We are hoping that things will be calm for season, we have certainly had enough storms to last for a good long while!

I'll be linking this post to Mosaic Monday at Little Red House

Back in the Saddle

These aren't exactly beautiful pictures of butterflies but I wanted to show that you can attract a variety of butterflies by providing fruit for them.

Hackberry butterfly- (First time to see this one in the garden!)

Each time I cut a melon I place the rinds outside. The butterflies flock to it! The flies do too, but I try not to think about that.


I think this is a Viceroy

I found this blue plastic tray with a stand for $2.00 at a garage sale early this summer. I bought it with this specific thing in mind. It has worked just like I had hoped that it would!

Red Spotted Purple

Last year was cool and rainy, I think I may have seen five butterflies all summer long. This year has been hot and I have seen more species in my garden than ever before. I think the watermelon has helped attract them to the garden, especially the red spotted purple. They love it!

Question Mark

I apologize for my lengthy absence. I just needed some time to process all of the changes in my life. Losing my mother was such a shock. Sadly sometimes these things tend to bring about the worst in people, so there have been some challenges regarding extended family as well. I was not expecting to deal so soon with greed and malicious behavior. It is very sad and incredibly hurtful.

It is time to move on and try to enjoy my life and my own precious family again.

Monarch

I have also had frustrating computer issues. My desktop computer has been in the shop twice and it needs to go back again. Thankfully it is still under warranty. The laptop I use now is frustrating because it skips letters and without warning it erases large sections of script and pictures. I just have not felt like doing battle with it and Blogger to post. Hopefully, now that I am in a better frame of mind, I can get back in the saddle and post more regularly.

Thank you all for your thoughts, prayers and encouraging comments for me during this very difficult time in my life. I've missed you all!

Just The Way It Is....

Thank you all for your kind comments, your prayers for my family and your encouragement to me. I wish I could find the words to tell you how much it means to me.



When I first started this blog I wanted it to be a place of beauty and encouragement to those who visited. I shared very little about my personal life. I still want to share the beauty that I capture from my home and garden, but certain aspects of my life right now are difficult and sad.



I'm finding it hard to blog, because I am more in the mood to be contemplative, quiet and withdrawn. It seems that there has been one gut punch after another, and there doesn't seem to be an end in sight.



A couple of days before my mother passed away, my brother, who is 17 months younger than me, had surgery on a mole that had suddenly changed. I found out a few days ago that he has stage 4 melanoma cancer. I'm very worried about him.



Also, I just found out today that a dear cousin has Chrondrosarcoma cancer. He is my cousin, but his wife is my very dear friend. His mass is attached to his chest wall and protrudes about two or three inches, it is quite large. Surgery is not an option right now, hopefully chemo and radiation will shrink the mass. My heart is breaking for them.



I am thankful once again for beautiful distractions. I have walked around my yard for hours at a time with my camera in my hands. It is there, behind the lens, that I can lose myself momentarily.



Please pray for these loved ones of mine. Hopefully one of these days things will calm down and life will return to normal and I'll feel more like blogging again. Right now I have a difficult time thinking and finding the right words to say.

Sad Times.....

Almost eight weeks ago my precious mother went to the hospital for diverticulitis. They treated it for nine days with antibiotics with no success. They did emergency surgery taking a foot of her colon and gave her a colostomy. Because she was a diabetic and had been on Prednisone for almost twenty years, her wound never healed. During her fifth week in the hospital they overdosed her on Morphine giving her 20 mg in four hours. When they discovered their error, they flushed her with fluids so fast they caused her to develop pneumonia. She also got VRE which is a hospital acquired Vancomycin resistant staph infection along with e-coli and Peritonitis. She didn't want to die and fought so hard to overcome all of these obstacles, but she eventually succumbed to the pneumonia that filled her lungs. On Thursday, June 24, my sweet mother passed away.

After seeing her suffer in agonizing pain for weeks on end, it was a relief to the family to finally see her at rest. Because she was a Christian, we know that she is in a better place and we are comforted in that knowledge.

It is still so hard for me to even comprehend this. We have been preparing ourselves for my mother-in-law's death. She is in end stage Alzheimer's and only weighs 73 pounds. I can hardly believe that she has outlived my own mother, who was only 67 years old.

Please keep our family in your prayers. My dad had major lung cancer surgery last year. He is still in a lot of pain, especially after staying at the hospital day and night for so many weeks. He is exhausted and also dealing with anger towards the hospital for the many errors they made that sabotaged my moms health and we believe killed her. He will have many adjustments learning to live without my mom.

Thankful for Distractions

Sadly the peonies are already past their prime. They are so gorgeous, I just wish they lasted longer. (I think I say that every year. )



I bought this chippy blue picnic table at a garage sale last weekend for $5.00. It is a large oval table and quite heavy. It will replace a small wrought iron table that fell over whenever the wind blew hard. One of these days I will probably repaint it, but for now I like it just the way it is.





I love this poppy! I wish it had more than this single bloom. It looks so pretty next to the lavender. I will definitely save the seeds and try to grow more of them.



I've never had much success with roses before, but the pink double Knockout roses are easy to grow and they are so pretty. I like them so much better than the single Rainbow colored one I have.



I need to get outside tomorrow with my spray bottle of soapy water and get the aphids off of them.



I noticed this robin at the birdbath yesterday. It kept its mouth open. I was curious about this behavior and read that when the weather is hot they open their mouths and pant to keep cool.



We went from cold and rainy to hot and humid. I was looking forward to warmth, but not quite this warm yet.



I am definitely seeing more butterfly activity this year!



The hummingbirds are back too!



My mother has been in the hospital for over two weeks. She had a serious case of Diverticulitis. It ruptured and set up infection and sadly she had to have part of her colon removed and now has a colostomy. I haven't been able to go home to Alabama to be with her. My heart is so heavy and I am very concerned about her. At times like this, it is very difficult being so far away from home.

My dad is still in so much pain after his lung cancer surgery last year. It is really painful for him to stay at the hospital so much with my mother, but he does it anyway. He had a spot on his rib during his last scan. He will have another scan in a few weeks. I'm concerned that his cancer may be back. If it is, I don't know how they will take care of each other. I try not to think about that.

I am so thankful for the beautiful flowers, bees, butterflies and birds that provide a little distraction from the worry and concern.

Gorgeous Cherry Tree Blooms-Mosaic Monday

The cherry trees at the nursing home are in bloom. This has to be my favorite tree. I know I said that about the crabapple tree down the street, but I forgot all about this beauty. Besides, it's a woman's prerogative to change her mind.


I actually took pictures of it two times this week. The first time was Wednesday evening. They took Mom to the shower and I had a few minutes to walk around outside. Thankfully I carry a small Panasonic Lumix camera with me in my purse so I spent several minutes standing under this tree soaking in this magnificent beauty and taking pictures.




I was back again on Saturday to feed her breakfast and brought my Canon EOS 50D SLR.

All of the pictures above were taken with the Canon.

These were taken with the Panasonic.

I want to tell you about that sweet visit to the nursing home on Saturday. Alzheimer's is a tragic disease. My Mother-in-law was diagnosed with it about 14 years ago. Weighing only 76.8 pounds, she is now in the end stages and hasn't known who we are for several years. She can no longer speak understandable words. Her language ability is like infant gibberish before they learn to speak. She still smiles and tries to talk, but most of the time she sits with a vacant stare. While I was feeding her breakfast Saturday morning, she began to stroke my hair, then she patted and rubbed my face and patted my arm. It has been a very long time since she has shown any affection. I had to fight the tears that were streaming down my face. It was so special to have that affection from her. It totally made my day and the beautiful cherry tree was the icing on the cake.

I'm linking this post to Mosaic Monday Hosted by Mary at the Little Red House.