Wanda

About 39 years ago I and my mother came to meet a young lady at the train station in Los Angeles.

She was in the process of lightening the load on her shoulders by the weight of the father of her three children. He wasn’t a villainous man but amoral to a criminal point. He never understood the concept that just because he had done "IT" did not make it right or acceptable.

She had in tow the three children mentioned above. A beautiful slightly reserved six year-old girl a gregarious four year-old and the happiest little two year-old boy I have ever known. The two younger ones ran and jumped into my arms and for the first time I became "Uncle Dave." Well, "Uncle David" actually the change to Dave came many years later when I was in the Navy but that is a different story.

The young lady didn’t bring much with her. Beyond the children and some cloths she brought a bright mind and a determination to take care of herself and her family. No High School diploma, no notable job skills and no real insight into how she was going to accomplish the goal she had set for herself. As she had spent her life so far taking care of herself, her children and a house she found her first work in a rest home doing the same for the elderly residents. She was honest, hard working and funny and everybody loved her, I think, because she honestly cared for the people she took care of. It wasn’t just a job, she was the closest thing to family many of them had and that’s how she treated them, like family.

Through her work she developed an interest in health care as an occupation that might help her build a life beyond next week’s paycheck. She took classes and got certified as a Respiratory Therapist. That was over thirty years ago and she is still at it. Today she has a beautiful house a loving husband a whole mess of kids and grand kids all of whom think the world revolves around her and she has that same determination to take care of herself and her now very extended family.

She’s going to be sixty later this year.

She’s my big sister and I couldn’t be more proud of her if she were president of the United States.

Uncle Dave