Didn't know where to post his, so being a Geezer, making food (HawK VittleS) and living on what could be construed as a corner with a little imagination, I figured I'd post it here.
It's really been an up and down year.
My business is growing far beyond expectations and what I hoped with supplement my Social Security has now become my major form of support.
My neck, back and shoulder however is another matter. All my cervical disks have pretty much dissolved and two of the muscle that operate the rotator cuff are shot. So there have been a lot of trips to the doctor and physical therapy 3 days a week. Somewhere down the line, surgery looms and my thru-hiking career may be over. At 68 (In a week) I guess the old parts are wearing out.
So, here I was, feeling pretty down about that and then the Miracle, the life changing event took place. Oddly enough it happened as a result of something that I have scoffed at and resisted and often made a butt of my jokes. I refer of course to that threat to humanity and the world that most of us know, the Dreaded FACEBOOK.......
Without going into a long, long story, circumstances in the past resulted in my losing my family 29 years ago. Specifically 3 children who were 11, 9 and 5 at the time. Over the course of the years I searched for them in various ways, but was unsuccessful. many the night that I wondered where they were and if they were OK and how they had turned out. After my cancer diagnosis in the mid nineties and surviving what was initially a death sentence, I spent many an hour searching diligently, realizing that I had a second chance at life and determined to do all the things I had been "gonna do" all my life. I had succeeded in that with the exception of locating my children. I spent many hours at the computer, Punching in their names and coming up with so many, that it was an endless task emailing every name that showed up, unsuccessfully because of the sheer number of hits. So, I pretty much let go of any hope of ever finding my children.
Then, this past September someone on another forum I am a regular at was banned because of something that had said about the forum on their Facebook Page. I was curious so I went to facebook to see what had caused it. Since you have to be a member in order to see some peoples pages, I had to register and join, which I did. Suddenly I had a whole bunch of "Friend Requests". Some people I knew and a lot I had no idea who the hell they were. Si i tried to check their profiles to find out, only to learn that I had to be on their friends list in order to get any information. However, I learned that i could see a list of their "Friends". That gave me an idea.
I decided to search for my kids by name and check out the "friends" list of all that came out. If one of them had the name of the other two, then there was a possibility that I would get lucky. I started with my son, figuring the odds were his last name would remain the same, while my daughters might have different surnames if they were married. About 50 names in, I found a Christopher who had a Cheryl and a Dawn as friends. This Christopher lived in Tucson, AZ, which didn't look promising at first, but the two girls lived in Connecticut which is where I was stationed the last time i had seen them. So I sent off friend requests along with a message asking them certain things about their mother, father and where they had lived 30 years ago, etc. I sent those messages at about 1 am, Eastern Time and went to bed.
When I got up in the morning there were two replies waiting, both asking if I had any information about their Father!!! It was my children!!! I found out they had been looking for me as well. What i had never thought of was to have a listing on the internet somehow with my adopted name. When my mother left the Rez in 1948 I was six years old. She ended up remarrying and my stepfather adopted me and my name was changed. When i got back from Southeast Asia after the war, I returned to the rez to try to get rid of the turmoil that was raging through me, and o took back my birth name, Redhawk. My kids and my ex knew that Was Indian, but no one knew my birth name so they had been unable to find me.
So, Within a month I had been to Connecticut to see my daughters who live only a couple of hundred miles away and have flown out to Tucson to reunite with my son. The fringe benefits are that I have five grandchildren and a great grandchild. The last three months have been the happiest in my life and I have gone from someone who had no family to speak of, to one who now gets several calls a week and who looks forward to seeing his children and grandchildren.
There is a footnote to this story as well. Using the same method, I manged to locate three surviving half sister and two surviving half brothers by my birth father and his second wife.
So that's the miracle and part of the reason why I haven't been too active on this and other forums.
It's really been an up and down year.
My business is growing far beyond expectations and what I hoped with supplement my Social Security has now become my major form of support.
My neck, back and shoulder however is another matter. All my cervical disks have pretty much dissolved and two of the muscle that operate the rotator cuff are shot. So there have been a lot of trips to the doctor and physical therapy 3 days a week. Somewhere down the line, surgery looms and my thru-hiking career may be over. At 68 (In a week) I guess the old parts are wearing out.
So, here I was, feeling pretty down about that and then the Miracle, the life changing event took place. Oddly enough it happened as a result of something that I have scoffed at and resisted and often made a butt of my jokes. I refer of course to that threat to humanity and the world that most of us know, the Dreaded FACEBOOK.......
Without going into a long, long story, circumstances in the past resulted in my losing my family 29 years ago. Specifically 3 children who were 11, 9 and 5 at the time. Over the course of the years I searched for them in various ways, but was unsuccessful. many the night that I wondered where they were and if they were OK and how they had turned out. After my cancer diagnosis in the mid nineties and surviving what was initially a death sentence, I spent many an hour searching diligently, realizing that I had a second chance at life and determined to do all the things I had been "gonna do" all my life. I had succeeded in that with the exception of locating my children. I spent many hours at the computer, Punching in their names and coming up with so many, that it was an endless task emailing every name that showed up, unsuccessfully because of the sheer number of hits. So, I pretty much let go of any hope of ever finding my children.
Then, this past September someone on another forum I am a regular at was banned because of something that had said about the forum on their Facebook Page. I was curious so I went to facebook to see what had caused it. Since you have to be a member in order to see some peoples pages, I had to register and join, which I did. Suddenly I had a whole bunch of "Friend Requests". Some people I knew and a lot I had no idea who the hell they were. Si i tried to check their profiles to find out, only to learn that I had to be on their friends list in order to get any information. However, I learned that i could see a list of their "Friends". That gave me an idea.
I decided to search for my kids by name and check out the "friends" list of all that came out. If one of them had the name of the other two, then there was a possibility that I would get lucky. I started with my son, figuring the odds were his last name would remain the same, while my daughters might have different surnames if they were married. About 50 names in, I found a Christopher who had a Cheryl and a Dawn as friends. This Christopher lived in Tucson, AZ, which didn't look promising at first, but the two girls lived in Connecticut which is where I was stationed the last time i had seen them. So I sent off friend requests along with a message asking them certain things about their mother, father and where they had lived 30 years ago, etc. I sent those messages at about 1 am, Eastern Time and went to bed.
When I got up in the morning there were two replies waiting, both asking if I had any information about their Father!!! It was my children!!! I found out they had been looking for me as well. What i had never thought of was to have a listing on the internet somehow with my adopted name. When my mother left the Rez in 1948 I was six years old. She ended up remarrying and my stepfather adopted me and my name was changed. When i got back from Southeast Asia after the war, I returned to the rez to try to get rid of the turmoil that was raging through me, and o took back my birth name, Redhawk. My kids and my ex knew that Was Indian, but no one knew my birth name so they had been unable to find me.
So, Within a month I had been to Connecticut to see my daughters who live only a couple of hundred miles away and have flown out to Tucson to reunite with my son. The fringe benefits are that I have five grandchildren and a great grandchild. The last three months have been the happiest in my life and I have gone from someone who had no family to speak of, to one who now gets several calls a week and who looks forward to seeing his children and grandchildren.
There is a footnote to this story as well. Using the same method, I manged to locate three surviving half sister and two surviving half brothers by my birth father and his second wife.
So that's the miracle and part of the reason why I haven't been too active on this and other forums.
