{"id":19796,"date":"2023-07-12T00:02:56","date_gmt":"2023-07-12T00:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=19796"},"modified":"2023-07-11T19:15:27","modified_gmt":"2023-07-11T19:15:27","slug":"surprise-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2023\/07\/12\/surprise-surprise\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprise, Surprise!"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY JOELLEN COLLINS<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"
JoEllen Collins\u2014a longtime resident of the Wood River Valley\u2014is a teacher, writer, fabric artist, choir member and unabashedly proud grandma known as \u201cBibi Jo.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My last column conveyed the wealth of tender and loving care I have received since my fall about six weeks ago. I am recovering more quickly than expected. I think much of this process has accelerated because of the conversations, help with household functions and, most certainly, the daily laughter I had as a result of my interactions with both professional caregivers and several dear friends. Something emerged as almost miraculous, because the pain and inconvenience to me was tempered by the gratitude I have for my community.<\/p>\n

Today, however, I need to mention an astounding communication that showed up on my computer, entirely unexpected and joyous. As many of you know, a few years ago I discovered my biological mother\u2019s family who live in Oklahoma. They have welcomed me as if all the years I could have known them seem to have been scrunched into the inclusion I feel and their gracious acceptance of me and my life story.\u00a0What a blessing!<\/p>\n

When I opened my laptop to catch up, there was an email from a gentleman in Fort Worth, Texas, letting me know that I am his half-sister, born of our mutual biological father. In short, I have added two new families to my list of relatives and now possess two half-brothers and my adopted brother from the family that raised me.\u00a0I could never expect this kind of news, especially at this later time of my life.<\/p>\n

I have a handsome picture of Markley (my birth father) with a snappy cowboy hat on, like a shot from a fifty\u2019s movie.\u00a0We don\u2019t resemble each other. He was from a farm in Follett, Texas, where I would have been born if my pregnant mother had not been sent out to California, where I was adopted. He was one of 13 children (eight were male). I also have a picture of six of the brothers posing in 1945 in their military uniforms after they returned from WWII. One, the thinnest, had been released from a prisoner of war camp.<\/p>\n

As a writer, I am, of course, curious about their lives, though I probably won\u2019t get to meet the dozens of cousins I probably have. Because Markley is the biological grandfather of my daughters, I want to find out more about him. I do know that he was a paratrooper who, from a fall with a defective parachute, broke his back in three places.<\/p>\n

There are many ironies to all of this, which may take too much time to analyze. Since some of this very large family want to meet me and see what I look like, my new brother is planning a zoom meeting for that purpose.<\/p>\n

Then, after my surprise email, I received good news about my second novel. So, how grateful can I be?\u00a0\u00a0Life is full of unexpected events, some painful and others nourishing. I am filled with gratitude to be receiving these happy surprises, reminding me that if we just keep going, less fortuitous events may be accompanied by new and humbling gifts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY JOELLEN COLLINS My last column conveyed the wealth of tender and loving care I have received since my fall about six weeks ago. I am recovering more quickly than expected. I think much of this process has accelerated because of the conversations, help with household functions and, most certainly, the daily laughter I had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16827,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-commentary","8":"category-on-lifes-terms"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19796"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19799,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19796\/revisions\/19799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}