RICHARD'S QUEST
Richard, my brother, left us...only to meet us, once again,
in another realm, at another time!
Here, we seem to call that "leaving," a death...but there is no death!
It's only a dying.
For God is a God of the living!
And the living exist in His Eternal Presence.
I do grieve, for we only had met less than a year ago.
It was too short a time for me!
Yet, there is a Divine Plan that I do not know or understand about this story,
except to say that we will be together again in that Eternal
realm. So I am blessed for the "miracle" that brought us together for
one year and three visits.
His "quest," was to know his father's name...and it was met here.
He also had a picture of his father, met his sister and found his own family!
My "quest" was to meet my brother and to be at peace knowing
that he was in the right place with God.
June 19, 2018 Richard, my brother, died from cancer within his bones and lungs ,
received from the chemical "Agent Orange", that was used by the U.S. Government while he was
in Vietnam as a soldier in the Marine Corps.
Since my childhood days, I was told that I had a brother ten years younger than myself.
I was shown a picture of a little boy about 3 or 4 years old.
I cannot go into all the details, only to say that my own father had left our family and our home.
He had fathered a son and I was shown the picture.
Nothing was ever mentioned again, as secrets were kept
within the "family walls".
Time has a way of healing those secrets!
Throughout my life of schooling, nurses training, marriage and childbearing,
I would have a lingering memory occasionally..."I have a brother somewhere,
...I wonder if he is all right, if he needs help, if he's healthy"?
As years went by, the thought became an audible notification.
When my husbands last days were coming closer, the thoughts and longings
persisted more often.
I had been praying for the generational healing of our family tree and all it's members,praying
along with a book written by Fr. Hempsh, 'Healing the Family Tree".
My daughters heard my need and brought it to light, saying "Mom, we've
heard you, how can we help?"
For two years we searched the "paper trail" and ended up closer to nowhere.
We watched the T.V. shows of families being re-united and decided
that was not the way for us to go.
So we followed the trail to Ancestry.com and sent for the DNA testing kit and waited.
It was only a few months when I received a notice of an 98% chance of a cousin relative.
I knew it was my brother!
His name was Richard Gabaree. An unfamiliar name.
Too emotionally touched, I asked my daughter to answer the request.
The E-mails went back and forth,... he wasn't sure that he wanted to proceed.
He had given up 20 years ago looking for his father's name,
but every so often would look in on his ancestry page.
Here we were in August and his last connection was in May.
He said that his birth mother had written him before she died in 1995
and had written his father's name, but he wasn't caring then, and put it aside.
He thought he might still have the letter.
If the name on the letter matched the name we would send, then
we could plan to meet together.
Meanwhile, he sent a picture! There was a strong family resemblance!
I knew he was my brother.
We met here at my home.
The tension of my emotions were so strong!
So many questions flowing through my mind!
So much was unknown...would he welcome us as family?
Would he be angry or accepting of us?
Richard brought his daughter Kendra along. She was his constant caregiver.
We were comfortable right away after the initial greeting.
Somehow, they felt like family right away, and he love was genuine.
Richard told us stories of his adoption into a large family, the war, his wounds in the battles,
the resulting cancer in his bones and lungs, the insults he endured on coming home to the U. S.,
he showed pictures of the families he had raised...
he never once showed any anger of his past difficulties of life.
He recounted that in the Vietnam war he had saved the life of a brother Marine.
He shared his difficulty and feelings with us when he was told that he was adopted.
He was so open and honest with us and shared how he felt seeing his father's pictures,
looking for a similarity of features to himself.
The time together seemed to go by so fast; we all agreed to meet another time
and to stay in touch with each other.
We had two more visits and it seemed obvious that his health
was deteriorating quickly.
The doctors would give him 3 months before the lining of his lungs would
not expand enough to take in the oxygen needed for him to survive.
We had a short time of conversing via e mail;
then, silence for a month.
No one was answering the emails or phone calls to Richard.
We didn't have a way of contacting the family.
I knew what the family was attending to at that time.
The Funeral Mass was celebrated at Our Lady of Grace Catholic church
with a Military escort to the cemetery for burial.
Three weeks later we came together with Kendra again, and met Richard's wife, Sandra.
We shared many tender moments together that day... we laughed and we cried, as Sandra told us stories
and shared her memories .
We also shared our faith stories about God's infinite goodness in our lives...
and those times of little miracles that happened.
We all became closer, more loving and thankful for our family togetherness!
