My nephew Frank

Most of the time we blog about happy, joyful events. This event wasn't happy or joyful but a part of this earth experience. Death.
My nephew Frank Marks died November 24th, 2008. He would have been 35 on Dec. 2nd.
Actually this young man should have died before he was born. He was born premature. To not get into a lot of private family information his mom couldn't take care of him and didn't want to watch him "die" so she "gave" him more or less to my mom, his grandma. I was 15 years old. He wasn't well and needed a lot of attention. My mom, my younger sister Brenda and myself would take turns rocking Frank and keeping him upright. We would sleep with him on our shoulder.

He grew up in his grandma's home and was a pretty happy little kid. He was 3 when I moved out.

But as he grew up you could tell he always wanted to be with his own mother, even though she didn't want him and/or my mom didn't want to let him go. His mom, my sister had a lot of her own addiction problems. He also had a lot of problems and became addicted to some bad stuff and it eventually destroyed his spirit and body. I picture my mom, his Grandma Jean in heaven telling anyone that would listen to get Frankie up with her so she could take care of him again since he wasn't doing such a great job on his own. He was in a detox center when he died and he thought this time he was going to be able to make the changes he needed to to stay clean. Let's hope he was and now he will be able to progress where he is now in the Spirit world now that he's out of his mortal body.

He is buried right above my parents and my little sister. My dad is on the left, my mom in the middle and my younger sister Brenda on the right. Brenda and I are whole sisters, all the rest of my sisters and brother have different fathers. That's a whole other story...

One thing about my family is that it only seems we get together at funerals. Two of my sisters came to dinner the evening before the funeral, Margret on the left came from Colorado and Georgia on the right came from Oregon. April, in the middle, enjoyed visiting with them at dinner especially to hear some of our old stories. She loved Georgia's eyes because they reminded her of Grandma's.

You know what? Family has strong bonds no matter how screwed up the family is. The family I come from is proof of that. Some aren't talking to others and visa versa but yet financial help was given to Frank's mom by someone who she isn't talking to. Even though she might not say thank you and appreciate it, I'm thankful to have witnessed it. Yep, dysfunctional but it's where I'm from. I am VERY thankful to have the gospel in my life. It has given me direction, purpose and a way to live my life.