Nephews and Nieces

God's plan for families is one of the nicest things to have ever happened. When God put Adam and Eve together in the Garden of Eden and told them to be fruitful and multiply this was the beginning of marriage and families. We see families throughout the Bible. There are fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, sisters and brothers, and nephews and nieces. There are grandparents, aunts and uncles. Each one of these family members can be an important part of the family.

Today I want to tell about my nephews and nieces. I became an aunt when my sister Donna gave birth to her son Arthur Louis Sinclair on September 29, 1957. He is named after his father Louis Arthur Sinclair. I was already the mother of two year old Kathy at that time. Arthur was a beautiful baby boy, the first grandson on both sides of his family. In just one year and one day he would become the big brother to his sister Debra Marie Sinclair. She was given her mother's middle name Marie. We called her Debbie all through her childhood until she preferred being called Debra. She was as cute as any baby could possibly be. My daughter Laura was right in the middle of Arthur and Debra as far as birth order goes.

Donna's family lived in Los Angeles and we lived in San Diego so we did not see each other as often as I would have liked. Paul and I rarely went to L.A. Donna and Louis got to San Diego on special occasions or several times a year with their two little ones. The cousins enjoyed getting together as they got older and got to know each other better. There would soon be more cousins to add to the mix.

The next addition to the cousins was when my sister Betty had Gary. My handsome nephew Gary Edward was born February 19, 1960. He was an exuberant little boy, with a lot of personality. Laura really loved him a lot as one of her favorite cousins when they were little. Gary would become the big brother when Elizabeth Frances Hamilton was born on July 4th in 1961. She has her mother's middle name Frances. Elizabeth is also a family name. She was called Sissy for much of her childhood. Her family also called her Liz. My son Paul William, aka Bill, fits right in between Gary and Elizabeth age wise.

In December of 1962 I had my second son Griffith H. Marvin, aka Griff. The next baby would be another boy, Matthew Scott Hamilton, brother of Gary and Elizabeth. Matthew was born October 22, 1963. Betty and Sam now have three children, all born in California. One more son would be born in January of 1967 in Hawaii where Sam was stationed with the Navy. Mark Anthony would be child number four, the third son. They would move to Billings, Montana soon after Sam got out of the Navy the summer of 1967 while Mark was a baby. This is where the children would be raised.

When Betty and Sam and family were in San Diego, off and on during the Navy years, our children had chances to get to know each other. In later years after the Hamiltons moved to Billings they made trips to San Diego for family reunions. Gary spent time here the summer of 1973 with his grandma, my mother. He also helped us when we were moving that summer. I remember him with paint brush in hand along with my kids, his cousins. Elizabeth came to San Diego to visit her grandmother the spring of 1980 and ended up at our house for five years. Her dog Mouse joined our menagerie of cats, dogs and turtles.

Matthew has made several trips to visit us over the years. The year my Kathy was getting married Matthew came and helped immensely with putting the food out at the wedding reception. We had other help, but really needed Matthew's extra helping hands. Elizabeth was here then too and she had been involved with us in planning everything for the big day. It was her bright idea to make the mints. As for Matthew he actually prefers to be called Phinwe, but he has always been Matthew to us. Matthew the nephew with style. His color is black and he wears it well.

Mark was only here as a child with his parents. Mark has a sweet disposition whenever I do get to see him. He is the father of Brittany and Michael. They are both grown up now, and Brittany is in college and works for a vet. Elizabeth also has two children. Andrew, her oldest, is now a daddy to a baby girl. Elijah is a teenager, high school age. So Betty and Sam would be enjoying having a great granddaughter, as well as seeing their four grandchildren grow up, if they were still with us. We lost them much too soon. Sam was only 55 and Betty was only 67 when they died.

My sister Donna has more great grandchildren than I can remember. She may have only had two children, but they went forth and multiplied as was mentioned in Genesis. Debra and her husband have two children. Their son Shawn has two children. They all need prayer as there is division among them. Shawn has not been in touch with them as he should be in quite sometime, so Debra and Pete have not been able to see Shawn's girls since the first one was a baby. Debra and Pete have a teenager, Natasha, fourteen years and one day younger than Shawn. Remember that Arthur and Debra were one year and one day apart.

Donna's son Arthur has children and grandchildren. He has been missing since 1994 so he has not seen any of his family in a long time. He probably met up with disaster those many years ago. Arthur has three children and many grandchildren. His son David has four or five children plus a stepchild. David lives in Missouri with his family. Arthur's daughter Nicole lives in Wales and just had a baby boy in September. His son Michael lives near Donna and Fred and is a young man now. I wanted to say he is a teenager but time flies by.

Arthur was the cousin my boys had adventures with when they were young. Bike adventures and even a motorcycle adventure are included on the list of things they did together. Arthur was there when Griff had his bicycle accident on suicide hill. Years later Bill and Griff were trailing Arthur when he flew off his motorcycle. They came around a mountain curve and there was Arthur's cycle with the wheels spinning and no Arthur. He had flown off and was nearby. He survived with serious scrapes and bruises. He probably hurt a lot, but xrays showed no broken bones.

Debra has had health problems since she was a child. She has seizures that her medications don't seem to help. Right now she is in the hospital since one of the medications was making her very sick. She had been throwing up a lot and she was told her pancreas was the problem. It turns out to be that the medication is the problem. I don't know if they still think her pancreas is also involved. She has had one thing after another to deal with almost all of her life. When she was sixteen she had a tumor on her spine. That was resolved with surgery and radiation. Thankfully there was no malignancy involved. This all plays havoc with her emotionally. My prayers go out for this special niece.

My other niece also deals with health problems and I pray for her to enjoy improved health soon. She is enjoying life with her "new" husband Jack, a pastor of a little church in Missouri. She also stays interested in Jack's family which includes his adult children and many grandchildren. Elizabeth became like a daughter to me when she was at our house for five years. I have not seen her or her brothers since I was in Billings for their mother's burial in April of 2008.

I was going to write about our niece and nephews on Paul's side of the family, but I will save them for another day. Paul has one brother and he has three children, plus grandchildren. Charlie's three are all younger than our four. His first was born five months after our youngest son. Eric, Carrie and Deron were all born when the family lived in Coronado so we knew them as babies. They moved to Sacramento and our contacts were few so our children did not get to really know each other, I'm sorry to say. It was always a pleasure to see the whole family. We have had some opportunities to get together with them over the years of which I'm thankful for. Paul and I do stay in touch with Paul's brother and his sweet wife Edye. They are the best at writing to us of all of our family.

Families are close to our hearts and always in our prayers. May God bless each of these dear people. We may sometimes have different ideas about life and our creator. We may have different thoughts on politics and other matters. But we come from the same grandparents and have the same aunts and uncles. Most of us have blue eyes, but there may be some with brown eyes. Some are blondes and some brunette. But we have the same blood line. We have bonds that hold us close even when the distance is great. I love my family. I love my nephews and nieces.

Donna married Fred Guapo in 1979 after some years of being a single mother. Her children were grown up by then, but Fred had a young son, Freddy. He is now a fine young man and has a beautiful wife. In 1980 Freddy was with our large family gathering in a family picture that included all of Mom's family. Donna, Betty and myself with all of our children, my husband Paul and Donna's husband Fred were all in this portrait. All were there except Betty's husband Sam. He was still in Montana as he couldn't make that trip to San Diego.

Family reunions are most enjoyable. Getting together with my grown children and grandchildren is extra special for me. My four are spread across the country from California to Florida. Our oldest daughter Kathy, her husband John and their family are in Colorado. Our granddaughters are all grown up. Becky is married and has a baby boy. Melissa is a teacher's aide for a preschool class and she is studying to be a preschool teacher. Our sons each served in the military for a period of time, and they each own their homes, one in California and the other in Florida. Laura shares our home with us. It is a challenge to get everyone together. We can manage to have three together, but that seems to be the most at one time.

Then when it comes to the nephews and nieces it would be a rare treat to gather everyone together again. The last time may have been when we had that large family portrait in 1980. We also had a very nice gathering with four generations at Kathy and John's wedding in 1983. But there is always someone missing in the picture. We have several more favorite family pictures when our granddaughters were little. These were three and four generation portraits with all four of our children present. It is fun to think on these things. I do not expect all of my mother's grandchildren to gather together again in my lifetime, but the memories are sweet.

originally written October 18,2011
first picture-Arthur and Debra
second pic.-Gary,Elizabeth &Bill in front
Laura and Kathy holding Griff in back
third pic.-my Dad with all of his grandchildren
fourth picture-Arthur with kitten
fifth pic.-Arthur, Laura and Kathy with kittens
last picture is our large family portrait with Mom
and all of Mom's family as described in story.