Rain

It's raining here. We need the water but it's not too good to have 3 dogs going outside to do their business and tracking water and mud inside. And Dizzy is like a wet dust mop after she goes out. Her kind of hair just sucks up the water. She comes in and wants her mama to wipe her down.

Today is Pearl Harbor Day. I probably wouldn't remember it if it wasn't my mother-in-law's birthday. She has been gone many years now but since researching her daughter's father's past, I realized how much that day had an impact on my mother-in-law.

Her husband was a pilot and joined the RAF before the US was in the war. He left for England in December. They married before he left and she was left with a surprise. She was pregnant. The husband died the first part of September and their daughter was born two months before. I just hope that he knew about the baby before he died. He was buried in France where his plane went down.

Even tho my mother-in-law would later marry again and have a son (my hubby), she never really accepted that he was dead. She would watch newsreels from the war and search faces. I have since proven that he did die and we even have a photo of his gravestone in France. I just wish that Margaret had lived long enough for the internet and my search so she would have had closure.

That probably wouldn't have happened had she lived as she didn't share information about her first husband even with her daughter. It was too painful and the daughter soon learned that asking questions caused her mother much grief so she stopped asking. And now everyone with any knowledge is no longer living. We have found some information but keep hitting dead ends.

The state of Maryland won't give us a copy of the dad's birth certificate because his daughter doesn't fit any of the people who can get that information. Like the person themselves. A child of that person isn't on the list. We even sent paperwork showing his death, his gravestone, her birth certificate, RAF papers that have been unclassified, the daughters driver's license, and anything else that we could think of. Everything including the check was returned and marked unable to provide that information due to she isn't allowed that info. If she isn't, who is? That man can't ask for it himself. Anyone who would be, is no doubt no longer living but her.

His daughter knows very little about her dad. She would like to know more about his family. He could even have had children before her. She doesn't even know her grandparent's names (except the first name of her grandfather) or anything else about them. Why isn't she allowed that information? She wasn't adopted. Files should not be closed to her access and nothing in those files would hurt anyone if she had them. His daughter is now 65 years old. I would like her to have the knowledge about her past that everyone else has.

I told Dannie, my sister-in-law that she had better not die until I have that info as I am determined to find out. But I'm getting doubtful. The letter from the State of Maryland took the wind from my sails.

I am doing some thinking today (oh no, the sky may fall). I am putting thoughts down for my last day of the year post and for my wish list for next year. Of course it will contain the usual weight loss. Hopefully other things on the list will come about better than the weight loss each year. Maybe if I put weight gain, it will psych myself out for the opposite. But if it doesn't, I'm in trouble. Just how far can a body stretch without bursting?