Truly Blessed
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About this ebook
In Truly Blessed, Price begins her familys story where her first book, Living with Robbie, ended. She tells how she and her husband made the painful decision to place Robbie, then seven years old, in a state-run institution. They brought him home several times a year so their other four children would realize he was a part of the family.
As the memoir continues, Robbie is an adult and his parents are aging. Price also faces her husbands slow decline due to Alzheimers disease. The book tells of the effect that both her sons and her husbands limitations have had on her and on her other four children.
Nancy D. Price
Nancy D. Price earned a child psychology degree from Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts. She worked in the banking industry for twenty-three years. Retired, she is an advocate for a number of organizations. A mother of five, she lives in a retirement community in Pennsylvania. This is her second book.
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Truly Blessed - Nancy D. Price
2011, 2015 Nancy D. Price. All Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
Published by AuthorHouse 10/21/2015
ISBN: 978-1-4634-2907-2 (sc)
978-1-4918-6749-5 (e)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2011911240
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
CHAPTER 1
I was relaxing in our living room recliner, reading the newest selection of my book club, when the phone rang. Scrambling up, I managed to answer it on the third ring.
Mom,
said the voice at the other end of the line that I recognized as that of our youngest son, Jim. Will you and Dad be home on Memorial Day?
Well, your dad and I have a few errands to run in the morning, but we should be here the rest of the day,
I replied.
There was a slight pause. Jim then continued, I want to talk to you and Dad about something.
We chatted a moment before the call ended, but I couldn’t help wondering what was so important that Jim felt he had to check to make sure that both Bob and I were going to be home before he drove over. I settled back again in my recliner, but my thoughts were no longer on my book.
* * * * * * * * * *
My husband Bob and I had started out in our marriage so normally, marrying in our early twenties just after I had graduated from college. Three years later we were so excited when our daughter Beth was born.
However, everything changed nine months later when I was diagnosed with German measles and shortly afterwards learned that at the time I caught the disease I was carrying our second baby. Our son Robbie was born with a congenital cataract, was profoundly deaf and severely retarded. It was then that Bob and I began a journey through unchartered waters, trying to find help for our first son.
Robbie blossomed at a special nursery school program run by our local chapter of ARC. In the sixties, however, unless a child could fit neatly into a school for the deaf, special classes for the mentally handicapped or a school for the blind, the child could be excluded from the system. We found nothing for a child with multiple handicaps.
In the meantime we had added another son, Dan, and a second daughter, Barb, to our family, and I was pregnant with Jim, our fifth child, when we made the painful decision to place Robbie, then seven years old, in a state-run institution. We brought him home several times a year so our other children would realize that he was still a part of the family, but we didn’t want them to ever have to be caretakers for him.
Robbie spent eleven years in the state school and then was transferred to a deaf-blind program at the Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia. During the three years he was there, he underwent multiple eye operations for a detached retina. He then spent time at the Helen Keller Institute in New York and The Elwyn Institute in suburban Philadelphia. Finally, he was placed in a group home run by H.A.P., Inc.; and after a few moves, Robbie was put into a residence in Souderton, Pennsylvania, with two other deaf-blind individuals.
By this time our other four children were all married and on their own. We were grandparents to nine beautiful grandchildren. Bob and I were both retired. We had bought a manufactured home in Fort Myers, Florida with the idea of becoming snowbirds
. It should have been a time for us to relax and enjoy ourselves. Still, we were concerned for Robbie. Even though he seemed to be settling in at his new group home in Souderton, he looked forward to visits home every month to six weeks and to going with us to the seashore for a week each summer. Bob and I were fast approaching our seventies and knew we wouldn’t be able to keep to this same schedule for many more years.
CHAPTER 2
On January 12, 2000, after being home through the holidays and welcoming in the new century, we left for Florida as had been our custom. We had started to go to the manufactured home park, Century 21, in Fort Myers, first to visit our friends Grace and Hap Easlick and then renting a house. In 1998, after renting for five years, we finally bought our own place. We had invited many of our friends to visit us there: Marge Prendergast, my sponsor when I was confirmed in the Catholic Church; Pete Farmer, who was Rob’s godfather, and his wife Barbara; Tony Olivieri who had gone all through school with Bob, along with his wife Cele, both of whom were godparents for our daughter Barb; Joy Hennessey and Marilyn Pearl, two other classmates of Bob’s, both now widowed; and Dick and Eleanor Burke, who had worked at Girard Bank where Bob was employed. The Burkes had a time-share in Fort Myers Beach and would stop for a few days to visit us, either on their way there or after their time was up before they headed home.
All of these friends had also been with us on one or more of our trips over the years—to Bermuda, Ireland, Alaska, Branson, and Cape Cod. We enjoyed taking our guests around Fort Myers and showing them the various local attractions—the Thomas Edison House, the baseball parks where the Boston Red Sox and the Minnesota Twins held their spring training, the gulf waters of Fort Myers Beach, sunsets on the causeway leading to Sanibel Island, and our park itself with its community hall, swimming pool, Jacuzzi, and the bocce and shuffleboard courts.
01_FQA.tifOur home in Fort Myers
02_FQA.tifSunset on the causeway
* * * * * * * *
The people in our community were friendly and carin g, and Bob and I enjoyed the various activities there: bingo, Koffee Klatch, potluck suppers, dances, the spring talent show, hot dog lunches, pancake breakfasts, and ice cream socials. We were kept busy trying to fit it all in. We had also been made joint chairmen of the St. Patrick’s Day parade, a fun affair when many of us would decorate our bikes and ride through each of the streets in our park. Those unable to participate would sit outside their homes and cheer as we rode by. As much as we enjoyed our time there, however, we knew we could never live in Florida full-time because of Rob.
03_FQA.tifSt. Patrick’s Day at Century 21
* * * * * * * *
In February, I called the H.A.P. office to let them know that we planned to fly up to Pennsylvania to bring Rob home for a weekend later that month. I talked to Barbara Miodovnik, the executive director of the organization. She told me that recently she had to drive over to Rob’s