I have never had this date nailed down in my mind - the day that my 4 adopted siblings lost their parents - but today my sister, Cheryl, announced that this was the day of their most horrific loss! I am feeling deeply moved by this as I can now know that I was 15 when we got the shocking news that the Dorn family had all been in a horrible accident - both parents had been killed and the 4 kids had all been hurt as a drunk driver had hit them coming home from a drive in movie early in the morning of July 30th,1967. He hit them driving the wrong way on the road head on! JoAnn, the mother, had said shortly before this that she did not want her kids separated if anything should happen to them. Adding 4 children to a family was a lot to do, and none of the close relatives felt that they could manage it. But the Holy Spirit spoke to my dad and told him that we should add them to our already 7 children - I being the oldest at 15. This was a hard move for all of us! Yet, I see how much my life has been blessed by adding the 4 to my most cherished siblings. The Cross called Family has brought us all to newness of LIFE together. The hardship and pain of loss has caused us to grow ever more in LOVE! Just as when a new little one enters a family LOVE grows - it doesn't get stretched more thin... so our LOVE has gone outside of the normal bonds and entered into a caring and more compassionate place called a family that is open to all that the Lord is calling to enter it. I considered adoption in my own family to expand our horizons, but due to the farm and other issues it was not to be. Instead I have found a spiritual expansion of my family through our involvement in a young people's retreat called Together Encounter Christ! I also have those 7 in heaven that continually brings my eyes and heart to My Heavenly HOME!
I now have a date for this picture too... it must have been August 1976 as we have just taken the 4 into our family. We are introducing them to our beloved Michigan, and the youngest, Carol, who was in the front seat with her parents at the time of the crash still has the cast on her leg. I think that all of us were still in shock, but most especially the 4. Suddenly their parents are gone from this world - how earth shattering! A lot of emotions and feelings are flowing all around me and within me and through me today. There is something very solid and deep about having an actual date to place all of this. I just knew vaguely that I was close to graduating and that we all then moved to Minneapolis as a family the summer after I graduated high school - the summer of 1969. So we had two years to try to blend the two families together in Flint. I think that the relocation to Minnesota really helped to give us all that shared new start, and was huge in bringing us to that place of LOVE and acceptance called Family/domestic Church! Minneapolis brought us to becoming Catholic as a family of 13 after we started attending Charismatic prayer meetings at a convent and through that door we entered the world of Catholicism! For the entire story you may go to my page devoted to this - http://familysoulstory.blogspot.com/p/the-amazing-story-of-13-becoming.html Sharing the move and starting afresh for all of us in a new city/state was huge in our coming together, but the conversion, as a family, into The Church was tremendous in our LOVE! So powerful to recall just how amazing that first Communion was - all 13 of us receiving Jesus in His Body and Blood on Christmas Eve 1971 at the Cenacle Convent in Wayzata! Life has never been the same for me since then... I am forever changed and am HIS!
New Catholics at the farm in Wisconsin. We no longer had the Big Lake to go to, so my parents bought a building site in Wisconsin where we could go as a family to get out of the craziness of the big city and bond as a family while we made the house livable - we never had running water only a pump outside- and to grow a big garden for the family. I think of the wisdom of my parents as they gave big thought and took very seriously raising us and protecting us from harm whether physical or mental or spiritual... they really were amazing parents and still are - I am so blessed!
Jesus, today marks a huge event in the world I live in with the other 13 members of my family and now with the marriages and openness to LIFE we are getting close to 100 members! We are all changed and brought to a place of deeper sense of LIFE/LOVE/LIGHT by this day 46 years ago. Understanding the loss is so hard and a mystery we will not know until we meet you face to face. Continue to work in and through our family as we grow ever larger in your LOVE within your domestic Church/FAMILY! May we continually be childlike with wonder and awe at all the ways you have touched our lives with your special fingerprint of possession - we are yours and may our prolific fruit show the world that we are yours alone. Jesus, we trust in YOU. Amen and Halleluia
Bless-bless, Barb
"As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he put our transgressions from us.
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him."
Psalm 103 - the psalm from mass today and shared by the faithful all over the world today that is powerful - talk about an army of voices praising their LORD to the highest heavens!!! This is called a grand Hallel psalm!
One of my favorite pictures from "the farm" - Cheryl washing her hair at the pump. We entered the pioneer days and I do recall that Cheryl loved the Wilder books - Little House on the Prairie and all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bW5unzXXC0k Casting Crowns - Come to the Well!!! "Leave it all behind...."
Bonding family time away from the distractions of LIFE - no TV.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyoVJfADlwo And I have to include this from Casting Crowns - East to West after the Psalm for today!
Newly moved to Minneapolis as a family growing to LOVE!
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