This is the time of the year most of us look back and thank God for our blessings.  Of course, we should be doing that every day, but when we think of this holiday season our hearts become mellow.  Reflecting back on the months, year, years, and we reminisce of all the good things that have come our way.  I am no exception, except I do thank God every morning for giving me a new day.  A day hemmed in prayer.  I need that to get me through my bumbling of the day!

Since I’ve found all this information about my biological father recently my mind has wandered back through my growing up years.   My step father was, for all accounts, a father who was absent most of the time.  Oh not because he wanted to be, but because he was in the Army.  There was the Korean War, his TDY’s, he was out in the field playing war, and several times he was stationed quite a few miles from our home, and only came home on week-ends.  The later was to keep my siblings and me in a more stable  atmosphere for school and friends.

When he was home I think I may have been his favorite, even though I was a step daughter.  Or maybe it was because I was the oldest and when I was learning to drive he would tell Mom he was going to the store to buy a six pack and he was taking me.  Yes me.  I think Mom knew that as soon as we turned the block Dad stopped the car and I slid over to take the wheel.  My only problem was when I took him home I drove into the drive way and ran over her ivy every time!

Pop, as I called him, always had a hug for each one of us kids.  His laugh was mischievous and infectious at the same time.  He liked to play pranks on Mom and usually had one of us kids in on it.

He was not without his faults as all of us have ours.  We are not a perfect person.  My parents were divorced after fourteen years.  Pop from then on traveled from place to place only to finally stay close to my one brother and me, going back and forth between the two of us.

Then there is my father who is named on my birth certificate.  Yes, my mother was married, but had an affair to which I am a product of that affair.  I knew from the time I was eight years old I had another father but my mother would never talk about him.  It wasn’t until I was fifty years old when I found out about the affair, but my mother had already passed away leaving me with more questions.  All those years all she said was he was a good man.

Now my biological father.  Since I have done an extensive research on him and his lineage I feel I know this man pretty well.  Perhaps more than any of my family members.  But now that I know him, on paper anyway and pictures, I can say I have been blessed.  Blessed because I had a father who fathered me, a father who gave me his name, and a father who was physically in my life when he was able to be there.  AND I had a mother, though not perfect, she gave us all the love and guidance she knew how to give.

Thank you MOM, DAD, and most of all thank you LORD.  I AM BLESSED far beyond my wildest dreams.

Merry Christmas to all and have a blessed New Year.