Received a nice surprise today...

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Despite the rough season I have had, with the disappointments, and additional pains… God still manages to give me a surprise or two. And today was one of them. It is funny… The people I expected to hear from this Christmas season, I didn’t. Then out of the blue, I get a Christmas card from someone I never expected to hear from. Today I heard from a dear cousin. Inside the card, she placed a few family photos. She could not have given me a better gift. I miss my family photos. Especially the ones I had of my immediate family. These photos were not of my immediate family, but my moms. But still...I am so happy to get them. I don’t even have any photos of my mom’s funeral, and the wake. I would give anything to have a couple of those, despite the sadness of the occasion. Unfortunately, a couple relatives did a horrible thing to me on the day of my mom’s funeral. I had brought some photos on the plane with me to share, and the night before...my grandma Plummer (my mom’s mom) gave me some out of her photo album to keep. Photos of my mom, her grocery store she used to own, my great-grandma, and so on... My grandma gave me such a wonderful gift. After we came back from the burial site, I decided to go into my suitcase to get them out, to share with the family. To my sadden surprise, they were gone. Someone stole them. I had mentioned this to my grandma, and when I did...one of the individuals that took them, heard me talking to my grandma, and admitted that she took them, along with someone else. Even though I am trying not to be mean by sharing this; I am just stating a fact. I was floored these individuals would do this to me, especially on the worst day of my life. I tried to no avail, to get them back. My grandma tried pleading with this individual to return them, and this person would not. I told my grandma that due to the circumstances, and the great loss we suffered; I did not want to say anything else about it at the time, and would address it later. And I did… Though this individual took photos that I took myself with my own camera; my mom gave me; and what my grandma gave me…(and should have never done so in the first place)...they promised to make copies, and send them back to me. Over the years...this individual promised to make me a family scrapbook with those photos in them for my birthday; then Christmas...and so on...but they never did. Finally...after years of pleading with her to give them back to me; she told me that she decided to give them to other family members (and would not tell me who)...whom she thought deserved to have them… But they weren’t hers to give. They were mine. It is bad enough someone takes something from you, that is a great treasure to you...but then do it on the worst day of your life? First...I lost my mom, and now the photos of the memories I had of her. It has been 23 years now...and those photos are forever gone. There is nothing I can do to get them back. So for my sake...not theirs… I had to forgive these individuals, even though they broke my heart immensely. That is why what this cousin did for me today...meant so much. These photos are important to me, because it allows me to keep the memories alive, and have something tangible to hold on to, that I no longer have… I even wish I had photos of myself, when I was growing up; while I was in school; as a teenager, and even as a young adult. I only have a couple of digital photos of me as a baby, that I happened to upload on Facebook, before I lost everything. And this is it... The photos I received today: included my mom when she was young, a couple of aunts, and an uncle. I want to get my thoughts together, and eventually share them with you. I also want to include the ones this cousin sent to me, earlier in the year. I now have photos of relatives, that I have no clue who they are??? LOL I may have to do my own genealogy research, to match a face, with a name. Nevertheless… Though the photos are not the same…God is giving me a little bit of my family history back, even if it is one morsel at a time.