Thinking of my Dad on what would have been his 92nd Birthday: Happy Birthday, Dad!

My father Dale Dee Palmer, Sr was a larger than life kind of guy, growing up out West in New Mexico as part of a big Mormon family (is there any other kind?) and going to World War II in the Coast Guard for 3 years, then heading to the Northeastern part of the US, to marry my Mom Mary (also a Sr.) who was from Torrington CT.

Both Mom and Dad were born in the summer of 1922, with Mom's Real Birthdate August 14th, though she thought it was the 12th her whole life but I learned two years after she died on June 2nd, 2004 that her birth certificate had her birthdate as August 14th. Mine is on May 14th, so I felt we were birthday buddies..and later I did the math, and realized I (and many of my siblings) were a bit of birthday celebration gift, being born 9 months after her birthdate in various year.

  When I arrived ( 2 weeks late, which could have been on two other sisters' late April, early May birthdays), my parents were 40 years young. I was their 10th child...with two more to come. 

With my mother's Catholic upbringing and large family of traditional family values,she took charge of the second half of her life even after many challenges. With a dozen children   about three (now four) dozen grandchildren, she really became a matriarch not only in our family but in our small towns.

She cut hair and cared for the elderly in her spare time, rented rooms to people in need (most in recovery, or supposedly going to give up the drink) and continued to be a moral and practical support for many. My father, a strapping 6 foot 2, eyes of blue kind of hard-working fellow, grew up making adobe bricks and helping his 8 plus 8 half-slbings and 4 step-slblings (yes, for a total of 20!) out in a small town his family of masons helped build in desert country.

When he finished 8th grade, he went on to high school but only if not needed to work at home. His main sorrow early in life was losing his mother Mabel who died having her 8th child, but did so rather than having the pregnancy ended so she could live. My Dad told me she was told they could only save her or the baby, not both.

She had albumen levels that would be too high if she kept the pregnancy and caused her great suffering. But that is the path she chose. She did live to see her baby I think. I like to imagine that she felt a deep love and connection with her youngest even with only a few days together. I have heard of parents having a child they knew would only live a short-time and finding a deep peace in at least holding their little one. It's tougher some say not to  be able to hold their child, yet I've also heard from a dear friend who had a miscarriage late enough on that she could have held the small infant yet chose not to

. She herself had almost succumbed to a fever and infection after having amniocentsis (which can be difficult for 1 out of 300 and cause the loss of baby, which was their case...). The mystery surrounding the coming and going of souls and mortal life deserves our utmost attention as things 'heat up' on our planet.

When my father Dale died on June 3, 2007, three years after my mother and his son Dale Jr died in 2004, I was facing some big challenges in my life...namely a long, difficult divorce and custody battle that I did not understand or feel was going fairly and was costing huge amounts of money for the state and our family.

I learned about an outreach called Fire the Grid (with an ongoing website) that explained something about the earth having energy lines that could be powered up by  a million people sitting down in a coordnated fashion for an hour on the earth and thinking positive thoughts. That sounded like something I had dreamed up.

The healing time for us to give some of our energy back to plan-it heart/ earth was July 17th, 2007 and the time was at 7:11am, (my Dad's birthdate put in hour and day form..something I have enjoyed doing with more special dates and which I have learned in another sense from www.heavenandearthworks.com is a way to learn about one's birth angels based on one's birthdate and time of birth.)

These kinds of fluid connections and interconnections have been a rainbow-type bridging of my conscious and subconscious. The book by Ruth Montgomery (which sounds a bit like our favorite childhood witch Samantha who was played by Elizabeth Montgomery, right?) called A World Beyond is one I have been reading again. Written in 1971, Ruth writes messages from Arthur Ford, a renowned medium who died and explained what happens after death.

Now I like to think of Arthur as the kind of King Arthur for our times who is not only pulling a sword out of rock, but pulling the words out of thin air and transmitting them to a willing friend and writer who were trying to light the way for US-All to evolve with love. I feel I've become an accidental student of such thinkers and gifted beings. My parents were both religious and spiritual and clearly had a knack for being grounded in the physical world.

The stress they lived under was not measured or assessed as 'too much for mere humans' and they both believed in spritual beings and their own divine souls, so who were they to know they were maybe 'over-reaching' in their ambitions to raise up a huge family including all the food needed, land and housing secured or bulit and survive the drug and wild side of the 60s in case they were making too much progress without enough challenges?

Sadly on July 21st, 2007, I was caring for an elderly man Tom Drew who had dementia at his remote home on Ravine Ridge Road in Salisbury CT.(more on that on another post on this blog and in the news.)

I had been with him on weekends from about October 2006 through the summer. I had already gone through a 6-month 'almost divorce' from Dec 1, 2005 (the same day Rosa Parks got arrested for disorderly conduct because I said I yelled, but meaning I spoke up for myself and left my difficult home situation for one night to have a break after 17 years. Instead, I was not allowed back in my home and in practical terms could not see my four children whom I had raised on a daily basis for all fo those years even though that was not supposed to be the case.

There are huge amounts of work needed for Every Family to Understand the Systems that can Impact them and their Options to Get Help Early and Often from Qualified, Caring TEAMS of people for Months as needed. Without a new, improved system of family Education and Informed Consent--including signing MOUs (Memorandums of Understanding) for Parenting Plans (for ALL parents, schools, coaches, towns and states...) regarding the Responsibilities for Supervising Young Children (and even abiding by practical standards if pregnant, planning to become pregnant, having a baby or any other kind of caregiving situation--babysitting out of the blue or on a semi-regular basis or longterm caregiving for any person--family or friend, paid or not paid work, etc).

The business of being a person needs to be spelled out in black and white, written on paper, put on video so people can really begin to see what the 'guidelines are' for people to have a group of people caring for anyone who needs care, not just one person.

Even individuals could be coaxed out of their cocoons or protective or isolating shells to 'have greater interaction' with a few others so no one is left alone, on purpose but even alone, and succumb to trouble (and yes, possibly fall ill or die with no one even checking on them for days. Yes, all of that has happened even in our small towns, so if 'it happens here, it can happen anywhere'.

 For now, I'll mention that the Tom Drew going missing in a sudden, mysterious way has been covered in the Waterbury Republican (rep-am.com), the Lakeville Journal and the Litchfield County Times. Tom and I were watching a TV progarm and then he seemed to want to 'go out'. I thought he was upstairs using his bathroom because the front door I thought he went out was locked. When I waited about 10 minutes and he still was not downstairs, I went to check. I realized he must have gone out the back kitchen door and yet when I checked that yard and all around the house, he was not there.

The large lawns made it easy to see if he were in the yard, but after searching for a few minutes even after the other caregiver arrived and checking again for about 20 minutes, he was no where to be found. We called police and a search continued for a few days and even over many years on occassions with helicopters, horses, dog teams and volunteers. But no sign of him has been found. I offer this as a way to remember Tom now too, as I think of both of my parents and others heavenside, including my brother and his first wife Jane, my teen son and many dear family and friends in wider circles.

The overall time I had with Tom was very positive, with a lot of simple time in the home and even going out to some local events which he enjoyed a great deal. I'll think of him in these modes and honor his life well-lived wherever he may be. All the best to all of our loved ones on the other great shore.

May we continuallly feel the rainbow of love that comes from above and be ready to help heal and transmit that kind of love to ourselves and others, the divine and those yet to come as well as those who have journeyed on ahead likely in part to light the way with their legacies and love.