Loose Ends #17

Remember Sandy, her and Bill had five girls, Cathy, Cindy, Teresa, Betty and Cherry. they also lived in Bonnie's home town of Holton. Sandy had developed arthritis in all her joints and was in pain almost all the time, she was on a lot of medication. She was my favorite of all my husbands sisters, because they moved to Holton we only saw each other once a week, she was such a nice person. She always fed anyone that came to their house, I felt so sorry for her, being in such pain. One day Bill, her husband. came home from work and found her dead, sitting up against the kitchen cupboards. Bill did not want an autopsy, he said she suffered enough, so we can only guess it was the arthritis that was her demise. It was a shock to us all, I still miss her and her wonderful laugh, when she laughed everybody laughed. Bill remarried about a year later, this woman was a carbon copy of Sandy, I mean in the way she took care of Bill.

In 1988 we bought a home in Ferrysburg, right over the bridge from Grand Haven. It was three bedroom, no basement but a large laundry room and the yard was big, Ron and Bonnie lost their apartment and moved in with us but not without the understanding they would pay their way. They now had two children, Sarah and Drew, when Drew was born he seemed to be okay but two day's later he had a seizure and was diagnosed with cerebral pulsey. He was such a sweet baby, smiled at you all the time, the doctors put him on medication right away to keep him from having another seizure.

Ron and my husband were still working at Haworth and Bonnie decided she would get a job. She ask if I could sit the kids, I was looking after them already while she slept late. I had a lot of energy then and I told her I would, actually it was more for getting her out of the house for awhile. I did my house work in the mornings, after lunch and Drew's nap we went to the park, he just loved to be swung in the kiddies swing. Sarah was now five and in Kinder garden and Drew was eight months old, he went to therapy twice a week, to help him with his left hand.

I was surprised when Ron ask Bonnie for a divorce in 1989, we could not figure out the reason. I can guess at a couple things, they drank too much, argued all the time and I found out later Ron was seeing a women he worked with, I don't know if Bonnie ever found out, if she did she did not say. They have been married six years, we went to court and was granted temporary custody. The reason for this is Bonnie took off also and we did not know where she was.

Ron got his divorce but did not have joint custody of the kids, and the Judge thought the kids should have a safe haven while the parents were acting immature. This started a long court battle, because we filed to have the children in our home, with visitation rights awarded the parents. Sarah definitely wanted to stay with us and Drew was too young to know what was going on. This drug out for almost a year and was draging all our savings with it. In the end the Judge gave Drew to Bonnie and Sarah went with us. I knew Drew would not get the care he needed. The Judge also told Bonnie if she came back in August at a new hearing she could have Sarah also. Bonnie never went back to court, I don't know if she understood what the Judge was saying or not. She was ordered to have an evaluation by a psypiaerist, the thing he found out was she could get along well with males, on this is what the judge based his decision.

Sarah was happy but her little brother was not and I worried about Drew all the time, I did get to babysit him a lot but he would cry his eyes out when Bonnie came for him, crying Grandma. We worried until Sarah was 17 years old that her mom would take us back to court, I would like to forget those years. While in her care he had many seizures, because she forgot to give him his medicine, he broke his left wrist and was in the hospital several times. Drew also had to put up with several boyfriends that were mean to him.

In 1996 my husband retired from Haworth, he had been there twenty years, we gave him a nice little retirement party. I was working for a cleaning company and my husband did not stay retired long. He got a job driving a small bus for child development. Doug was going with a women named Kathy, she had three children. They decided to get married, I knew from the start this was a mistake, Doug did not like kids, it was their noise. Her name was Cathy, she was a nice person and very pretty, she also was a working mother, Doug at this time was working in a pizza joint. They had a wedding at her place, it was just family and a couple close friends. They were only married a year, she said he laid around the house and would not work, and she was right. This is too bad I really liked Cathy and her kids, but Doug and her did not get along and only one of her boys liked Doug. So Doug moved to Holland, a town about twenty miles away and he got a job working at D & W supermarket, and we were still fighting through court for the grand kids.