Dreaming of Georgia once again

                                                        Savannah Georgia, I am hooked!

What have you done to my mind?  I can't stop thinking about how beautiful, warm and inviting you are!  I am constantly calculating and conniving ways to get back to you. 

 I fell in love with your artsy vibe and lovely southern drawl. The old brick buildings with wrought iron furnishing's.  The brick streets and walkways with telltale signs of the past. 

      The people I met in shops, restaurants, and bars were   so sweet and helpful.  The sun was warm and shining.  I must get there again..ahhhh. Savannah, the most haunted city in the United States is truly haunting me!!!

Add to that loveliness my Dad, Marty and sweet Diana and how could I not want to return?? How could I not want to escape into the happiness I felt back in October?  Will I ever be able to replicate the true joy I felt at that visit?  I thinks so, I hope so.  I'm willing to find out.

I've looked at houses online, dreaming and scheming.  I've driven Tony crazy with my thoughts.  I'm hooked.  It only took 4 days and I'm hooked!  Now to work on my dear Teisha and see if she will find some time to fly down once again with me.

For now, Savannah will have to remain on my brain, in my heart and in my dreams.  At least it won't be lonely.  It shares that special spot with my Dad.   

Thanksgiving- so appropriate

Today was Thanksgiving.  Something I have been thinking about for the last few months was how thankful I am.  I'm going to make this short and sweet tonight!

I'm thankful first and foremost for my family. My husband who means so much to me, my four great sons, and my mom.

I'm thankful for my mother Pat, my sisters Jesi and Heather, nieces, nephews, great newphew and stepsister Becca and Steven who makes my mom so happy.

I'm thankful for my father Brent, my sisters Teisha and Heidi, my brother Marty, my nephews and nieces, and Diana who has opened her heart to me.

I'm thankful for Tony's family especially Debbie and Tom who gave me the wonderful gift of Auntie this year to sweet little Andrew.

I am thankful for my friends who are really more family to me than some of my own family. I love you for encouraging me on my jouney and supporting me.

What's in a name? and other strange thoughts of a sleep deprived blogger

So I was thinking about names and coincidences and all sorts of things that are random and not related. This is what I came up with.

• As I mentioned earlier I had an epiphany when I was age 12 and just knew my mother's name was Patricia.
  

• When I talked to my mother for the first time she asked my full name. It's Jodi Joy. I learned from her that my sister Heather's middle name is Joy and my mom said she changed it somewhat at the last moment.

• My mom (Irene) thank God did not name me this, but thought about Micky (really mom, Micky??) Jo as my name. I meet sister no. 4 and her middle name is Jo. I've also been referred to as Jo Jo by a few in the past and one in the present.

• My best friend growing up , who I still to this day say is my very first SISTER - well her name is Jessica. I have a sister named Jesika too!

• Teisha- well I haven't found the name connection yet but give me a chance and maybe I will haha.

Is your name really reflective of who you are? I've had two names. One my mom Pat gave me, one my mom and dad gave me. Would I be different if I wasn't Jodi Joy?

I had no middle name on my original birth certificate. I asked Pat about this and she didn't remember. I know I LOVE names, so I'm glad I have a middle name for sure. I need to ask my mom why she named me what she did (another strange name if you ask me, sorry Mom!) but, hey it was the 70's !!

Anyways, this is a rambling blog post about strange thoughts that I had this morning at 1:30 when I couldn't sleep.

Peace and Pieces

My family is not perfect, but its perfectly compete now that I've found the missing pieces. I never realized until I found my mother and father, sisters, brother, stepbrother, stepsister, nieces, nephews, aunts, cousins (I could go on!!) how much I needed them. I was happy being adopted as a kid. I never felt any different with my family. My mom was my mom, my dad was my dad. I did miss having siblings. I always wanted sisters! Boy, now I have them. (yay me!)

I always wanted to know my mother. I always had a love for her. I had a vision of who she was in my mind (and when I met her, saw her younger pictures, it was right on). I even had a strange "dream", call it what you may, when I was about 12 years old. I woke up and told my best girlfriend Jessica who was sleeping over that I knew my mother's name was Pat. True story. Kinda strange.

When it came to my father, well, I didn't know any of the facts like I did with my mother. I knew she was young and did not have much choice in the matter I knew she didn't have her mother to help make decisions or help parent me if she kept me. I knew ENOUGH to know that whether she knew it at the time, she did not have any real choice but to put me up for adoption. Most importantly, in my years of NOT knowing her, I knew I loved her for putting me first. With my father, I had zero information. Nothing. Nada. What would you think?

Well, my parents had no information on my birth father so they had nothing to give to me. Those of you who read my blog know the story, i'm not going to rewrite that chapter today. He didn't know about me. Period. But as a child growing up, I didn't have this history. In my mind he was all kinds of things, but it honestly did not occur to me that he just didn't know.

I thought for many years after meeting my mother that I was fulfilled. I didn't think I needed to know my father. Of course I was interested in him. When she told me he didn't know about me, the interest sparked more. I could dismiss all those years of not so pleaseant thoughts I had about him running away from her in distress. Its always been my mother I've worried about. Funny to think now, that even as a child, I worried about her life and if she was ok. I knew I was happy. What about her? I wish for her sake that she knew I was ok. Well, I guess that is a whole other blog post!

As I watched the Locator with Troy Dunn on television again last night, I could see a piece of me in everyone one of those men and women searching for their birth parents. I cry with them everytime they find what they are looking for, good or bad. I've lived their lives in some ways, felt the highs and lows, made the hard decisions to search or not search. I feel a guilty happiness for me along with a sadness for them when I realize my outcome is better than many of them . (if you haven't seen this show, grab a box of tissues and see if you can make it without using one!)

I think often of Troy Dunn's famous quote " You can't find peace until you find all the pieces". What a beautiful true statement! My puzzle has been completed, my pieces fit together now with no holes or gaps. My puzzle sits on my dresser in my bedroom in the form of beautiful pictures of men and woman who are a part of me, one way or another, linked to my heart.

24 Hours of Emotions

So many thoughts have been scrambling through my brain I had to sit and write them down. What a day it has been!

Today was an intersting day of emotions. There was a brief health scare (everything is fine) with my Dad Brent . My mind started to work in the way it always does - being nervous and neurotic. I tried to tell myself that everything would be fine as all points indicated, but my well, my mind I guess you could say has a mind of it's own!

The three of us girls have an emotional stake in our father. Obviously there are similarities in what those stakes are but their are differences too. Each of us has had a different experience with him . For me personally, everything is new and a health scare for me is frightening in that I want every minute, day, month and year I can have with my father.

It made me think of so many things today. I thought of my own dad and the day I found out he had a heart attack at just 49 years old. I was 1 week shy of my 17th birthday with a two week old son. My life had been turned upside down by motherhood and then we got the call. My dad was sick, very sick. My mother and my aunt Carolyn went to the hospital. I stayed home with my 2 week old son- alone and scared.

Although the phone call Teisha received while we spoke was not quite so severe, it jolted back these memories for me. Teisha, trying to be the big sister told me not to worry. Too late, I heard it in her voice, her own worry, and I lost it. I hung up the phone and thought about those years , almost 21 years ago now, and I broke down. It took me so long to find courage to find him, he couldn't possibly be ill enough to be taken from me could he? I spoke to Diana and felt more secure but I couldn't shake the fear. Maybe, if I'm honest, I'll never lose the fear. Most people in life lose one father. By opening my heart to Brent I will someday have to lose two.

Other thoughts ran through my head. I had emailed my father the first time in June of this year. It is amazing how my relationship with him has evolved. I wrote in an earlier posting at how quickly I came to accept him and love him. Tonight I have thought about the reverse situation and tried to put myself in his place. Tried to think of him opening that email with my declaration, "I am your daughter". I thought of him sitting at his desk pouring over the words that I wrote. Remember , I had so many years to conjure up images of him in my mind. To twist scenarios of what might be if him and I met. He had the 30 seconds of time it took for him to read my email.

For me, those first few phone conversations had me feeling good about my Dad. The meeting at my house sealed the deal. After 4 hours he left my house. Tony looked at me and said "What do you think?" I replied with honesty " I know I can love him." Tonight I thought of him driving away from house, a man with a new grown daughter and 4 grandsons. I had spent so much time thinking of my feelings about him that I never put myself in his shoes. Truthfully, now that I do I can't help but admire him more for taking us all on.

I wondered that night after our first meeting if it would be difficult for him to accept me as his daughter. He did not have 9 months to nurture me and feel me like my mother. In fact as I said, he knew nothing of me being on this earth. I thought about it from his perspecitve, a 37 year old grown daughter coming into his life with no warning. Sure, I thought after that night that we would know one another, share bits of our lives and such. But I wondered as he drove away, could he ever truely feel love for me like his other girls? With my mother, I never feared, wondered or worried about her loving me. Its as if those nine months she had with me before my birth that she had infused her love with me. I didn't have to fear. A mother does not stop loving her child because they are not with them.

Today for me was a testament of this love. The heartache I felt thinking of anything being seriously wrong with him tells me where my heart lies. It gave me a chance to share sorrow with my sisters, not something I want, but something that bonds us together. I felt pity for myself last night, not wanting to be robbed of a father after finally opening my heart to accepting him as such. Perhaps I would have still overreacted if I'd met him 10 years ago, maybe I would not have. This regret is something I will deal with for my lifetime, hopefully in lesser quantities as time passes.

Tonight my heart rests with peace that I have a healthy father and more time to bond with him. I can not wish for any better news than this.