The Family Birthday

Harold Ward Crowley Feb 2 1909

Astronomer, Mathematician, farmer. He maintained a 2 1/2 acre vegetable garden into his nineties. Grandpa had me wrapped around his little finger. He just had to mention something strange that he liked and hadn't eaten since his mother died, and I'd be scouring the nets for butter steamed parsnips, tomato jam, venison mince pie.
He was my little Nikisa's kindred spirit and they would sit for hours in companionable silence, enjoying each other. I did marry Wayne for his own qualities, but his family also kind of turned my head. Grandpa was the best grandfather-in-law ever.

Vernon Edward Roberts
Bayard NE Feb 2 1917

My dad could make anything. A backhoe that dug a six inch wide trench, or a ten gallon pot of "Mulligan Stew" He loved hot peppers, rare steak, and sweet music. He wanted to be an engineer, the kind that drives trains, and as a teenager took a freight train from western Nebraska to Council Bluffs to look for work. He related it as his life's big adventure, not a "Grapes of Wrath" disaster, though it probably was some of that. He was always surprised to be loved.
He was too fragile from broken homes, too tender for the carnage of WWII, I am not sure he ever really came home. He's been gone thirty years, and I still have dreams in which he is healed.

Crystal Dawn Norton
Ainsworth, NE, Feb 2, 19XX (not wishing to offend her vanity as she is still with us and thinks maybe she is not such a spring chicken as she'd like to be ;-)

My feisty daughter-like thing, who thinks she needs no daughter-like things herself. Thank goodness for biological clocks. Ok, I've insulted and invaded you in every way I possibly can. I love you, I miss you. Keep in touch. Happy Birthday.

Jordan Matondo Gentry
Zaire, Feb 2, 1991?

Who missed crossing over Jordan but crossed over to Belgium both times by the power of prayer. What a tiny appealing little guy you were cuddled on your mother's lap. I didn't imagine then that you would be my brother-in-law.
Be blessed, be safe. Happy Birthday.

Dinn,
Phnom Penh,
Feb 2, 1992

I wish I could write her name in Khmer script, as it uses the most beautiful letters. Although she called my daughters "little sister" I can't claim her as family really except that she shares the family birthday, and we gave our youngest daughter her name. It means "precious" and also the fine threads of gold used in tapestry.
I pray for God's blessings and provision for her today.