Offspring !
I have three children: Valorie Westby, Eric Westby, and Kelley Bradley. Due to extremely difficult situations, I relinquished Kelley for adoption when she was a baby. She was adopted by wonderful people who have always loved her very much. I made contact with her again in May of 1997, and the experience of getting to know her as an adult has been, and still is, exhilerating!
Valorie is happily married, though, like me, she has yet to change her last name. She graduated from San Francisco State with a degree in social work and works, as a teacher and part-time administrator of a day-program for the developmentally disabled. I cannot remember ever possessing the physical and emotional stamina Valorie exhibits. She is loving and considerate and gorgeous. Her husband, Ron, runs a family business, along with his brother. She gave birth to a son, Skylar, and she and her husband adopted a baby girl from China.
Eric graduated from Harvard and works for The Atlantic Monthly magazine creating their web site. He, being my first child didn't totally amaze me until, at the age of four, he had to enter first grade because he was reading on a junior high school level. The only problem I experienced surrounding his intellectual precociousness was that it was strangely difficult to write to my, then, in-laws about him. I truly did not expect that they would respond with jealosy. I mean, he was their brother's child, too! It doesn't sound like much of a problem. And, looking back on it now, I should have been much more mature about it. But I wasn't. I had miscarried a few months before, and Eric was the joy of my life! Now, all three of them are.
Kelley will turn 22 in January, and last year, I visited with her in Arkansas. In passing, I will mention that if I ever get on another Greyhound bus, someone must shoot me, because it will be definite proof that my body has been appropriated by some sort of alien entity. But the time I spent with Kelley was, is, and always will be worth the entire string of indignities and discomfort! Actually, she is here in Ukiah, visiting with me, as I type this.
Kelley is MUCH more beautiful than the picture of her that I currently have posted. I took pictures of her while in Arkansas, and will, eventually, get one on the page. Spending time, talking, working with her was...I am rarely at a loss for words, but it seems that in this case, I am. She is so much like me--but, of course, much more beautiful. She is breathtaking, inside and out. Possibly you can tell that my children are undoubtedly, to me, the best and most important thing I have ever done. I thank God for the wonderful couple who adopted my baby girl. They love her unconditionally, and have not seemed to have any problems allowing Kelley to get to know me, again. I am not at all sure that I could be that loving and secure, but I would like to think I would try.
Oh! I want to thank my son for getting the picture of me onto his page so quickly. Granted, it is not a glamour shot--but it's way better than I expected.
I wasn't going to go into this, but I was hit by a car in 1994 and incurred (technically) 11 fractures in my right leg. Needless to say, I was off my feet for about a year and a half. I had been thin all my life but it is truly amazing and horrifying what 18 months of lack of excercise will do to the human body. I got up to 160 pounds, but am down to 120, as I type. Something tells me that, once I get up more pictures of my children and one or two examples of my own photography, I may be finding links to people with chronic illness or injury. I really did NOT want to do that, and I am still unsure that it is a part of me I care to overstate, but, much as my son expresses on his site, I, too, grapple with the question of the *real* me.
I have settled it to a great degree with the realization that it's ALL the real me. The concept of a *phony* me has become obviously impossible. Some people are truly smaller and neater than others. And others, pretend to be small and neat, sometimes convincing even themselves. They're just afraid, and holding back. I am not small OR neat!! As I said earlier, I am a double Scorpio (sun and moon), with 3 more planets in Scorpio. UGH! But would I change it? Of course not, although the energy can be very disorienting-for me and for many others around me, particularly if I am in the middle of forgetting how to ground, center--all those suspicious-sounding terms. However, it also may play some part in my intense need to KNOW; and I value that aspect of my Self, probably more than any other.
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