Robbie's Memories

                                                          Being Sick                                To talk about my illness, I have to first talk about Nerissa, so please bear with me.  Nerissa is my second adopted daughter.  I picked her up at Mary and Gerry Burke’s (her foster parents) house on May 20, 1993 to bring her home.  Nerissa was 20 months old.  She had been born 15 weeks premature and weighed 1 lb 11 oz at birth.  Mary and Gerry had taken her home from the hospital at 4 months of age, with a weight of 4 lbs.  At 20 months she weighed 18 lbs, not great but a giant compared to Diane, my older daughter, who had weighed 13 lbs when she came from India at 23 mo...

              Bob Rainey, my grandfather, was one of the sweetest men in the world.   He had to be, to live with my grandmother, and he loved her dearly.   She was 15 and he was 18 when they met.   She had gone to a dance with Harold Shelletti, with whom she was head over heels in love, and he broke off with her that night and took another girl home.   Bob Rainey took my grandmother home after the dance.               My grandmother said, when my grandfather proposed a couple years later, that she was still in love with Shelletti.   Her mother told her she would have a far better life married to a man who was head over heels in love with her, than she would if she married a man she was so crazy about.   So, she took her mother’s advice and said yes to my grandfather.                 I...