Well, hello, there, Patricia!!!!! I pray, wish, and hope for you and for you and for so, so very especially YOU, Patricia, for you and for you and for you and yours with your dearest husband, your Loved One in the long-term care facility, and for each and every one of you so, so very precious, special, blessed,and beloved family A Very, Very Nice, Special, Blessed Full of Such Very Bountiful Blessings Thanksgiving to all of you and to each and every one of you!!!!!!(SMILE!!!!!). Wow, sister, I am just overflowing with such great gratitude as usual as always anyway but as I am For Always I’m so, so very grateful to God and for being a Christian with loving Jesus with all that I have with all of my very being and what a Sweet Spirit we so love and cherish, sisterfriend!!!!! I’m not only so, so very grateful for my local friends who are like family to me like with my local white sisterfriends who I just so, so very much love and cherish, but also I am just so, so very grateful for YOU, dear, dear precious Patricia as you, too, are my dearest and darling white sisterfriend Christian Quaker white woman who I also so, so very much love and cherish!!!!! Wow, sister, you have just been very incredibly kind to me all of these going on three years with me writing so voluminously to you and your awesome blog pouring out my very, very heart, and my very, very heart and spirit, and you have been very graciously and generously open to me and all that I have shared and in letting me speak and find my very voice, my so, so very precious sister and friend!!!!! Thank-you so, Patricia!!!!!! I thank God continually for YOU, Patricia!!!!!! Yay for YOU, Patricia!!!!! Yay for our sisterhood and friendship, Patricia!!!!! Yay!!!!! Wow!!!!! Yay!!!!! I so, so very much love God who has very richly blessed me full of abundance, and for all of my so special and precious sisterfriends and brotherfriends everywhere both near and far, for my so marvelous friends in all of my very, very many, multiple 12-Step Programs at my meetings which I am a very rejoicing and proud member of as a recovering person in so many ways, and in fact I am very appreciative and full of such gratitude for all of our awesome Spirit God’s children who I love and cherish so as our sisters and brothers!!!!!! God is very much indeed just so, so Very Good, So Sweet, So Very Kind, So Loving, and is For Always There For Each and Every One of Us, sisterfriend!!!!! Sister, I have seen myself not only grow as a person and in my very heart and spirit throughout 2016 but in the nearly three years in which I have been writing to you and your blog and corresponding through email and the snail mail with you I have seen myself just blossom and grow in a great many ways!!!!! YOU, Patricia, are just so, so very good for me, friend and sister of mine, and YOU help me my sisterfriend Christian Quaker woman in my very walk with our Sweet Jesus!!!!! Wow!!!!! Yay!!!!!!
Sister, I thank-you so, so very much for this marvelous link to our brilliant late Barbara Jordan’s very much indeed righteous statement, Patricia!!!! Wow, I have always just so loved and admired her since I learned about her as such a little girl back then like around the time she made this statement which I so remember really well. I remember when she died in 1996 that the LGBT magazine, The Advocate, featured a cover story on her which said on the very cover that she had hidden her lesbianism for the last twenty years of her life until her death. I had already back then been en route in my very process of being more and more out of the closet, and I told myself twenty years ago that I am just going to have to come totally out of the closet as a lesbian myself because I don’t want people to say about me when my time comes that I had hidden my lesbianism. This greatly facilitated my very process even though I was already en route doing so to come even more completely out of the closet as a lesbian black woman, sister!!!!! Wow, I am so, so very glad that I am out of the closet for sure!!!!! Patricia, I just so love and admire our great late Barbara Jordan. I think of my late mother and how she had dabbled in politics where I grew up and am originally from in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, sister. Somehow even with my late mother’s active alcoholism and other addictions she somehow had some very fine accomplishments to her credit which is such a miracle unto itself with all of the issues she had. She had become a member of the Cleveland Heights, Ohio Board of Zoning Appeals in January 1974 when I was in the sixth grade. I was so proud of Mother. She became the Chairwoman of the Zoning Board in 1982 when the previous Chairman was killed in a car accident. When I was last in touch with my family I think until her death at the age of 52 right before her 53rd birthday on Friday, November 2, 1990 the day she died I think she may have still been on the Zoning Board. I had left Ohio in September 1990 after a failed reconciliation attempt with my family when I was still in Cleveland but due to all of the abuse in every way I was unsafe and to protect my life and my sanity I left Ohio after confronting my family about all of the abuse in every way and about their active and practicing alcoholism and other addictions, and coming out to them as a lesbian and they would have none of it. I found out that she had died in January 1991 when my former therapist in Ohio who knew that I had relocated to Iowa City, Iowa had contacted my new therapist in Iowa City, Iowa that my father had contacted her to let her know that my mother had died and that he couldn’t reach me!!!!! My mind snapped to find out like that three months after the fact and I just can’t describe the feeling or find words for what that was like!!!! My former Ohio therapist knew how to contact my new Iowa City, Iowa therapist because I had to transfer my mental health therapy and psychiatric records from Ohio to Iowa City, Iowa. When I had attempted to try to reconcile with my family of origin when I was still in Ohio I had told my parents where I was currently receiving therapy and other mental health care, and I gave my mother a pamphlet about a support group I was in with the Ohio therapist for people who were both alcoholics, addicts, and who had mental health concerns. I was trying in a failed attempt to get my parents and the rest of the family to go to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous and other 12-Step Programs like I was doing and to go into their own therapy and also family therapy but I wasn’t able to get them to listen. Just breaks my very heart although I love them so, so very much and I forgave them ages ago but I don’t feel safe like with my very life reconnecting to them!!!!! I remember that Mother would compare herself to Barbara Jordan and I even would draw a comparison to Mother and Barbara Jordan. I am just amazed that Mother was able to do some good things with her activities politically in Cleveland Heights, Ohio even with her issues and her alcoholism and other addictions which were pretty bad. Somehow with my father he was somehow able to maintain his jobs with his own issues and his alcoholism and other addictions. I was just so, so very impressed with Mother, She didn’t even finish high school which she was very ashamed of and kept as such a guarded secret. She had become pregnant with my eldest brother, Joe, when she was in high school and then my parents rushed and became married right before Joe was born. She was just so smart. With very little education she self-taught herself and I was just so amazed and impressed with how she could even at all understand the materials she had to review for the Zoning Board meetings. I am saddened that she and my father abused my two older brothers and myself in every way but I still love her so and am just very proud of her for her accomplishments in spite of it all. I used to say when I was a lot younger that I would do as the great author and daughter of Joan Crawford, Christina Crawford, did in writing her tell all book about how she was abused by her mother in her book, Mommie Dearest, and I said that I’d write my own version of Mommie Dearest,the black version! I remember when I was still living with my parents that it was all that I could do on the evenings when the Zoning Board meetings were taking place when she would be drunk and high, get her out of bed, help her with her bath, help her to get dressed and out the door for her meetings!!!!!! Wow, it was just so very hard and so very painful and traumatic, too, for me, and I had enabled her a lot when I was a lot younger. I’m just so, so very glad, and so, so very incredibly blessed and grateful that I found help for myself, and that I’ve been in past, and also continuing,current, ongoing therapy for decades and clean and sober in Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous since Sunday, August 5, 1990, and also how I’m recovering in very, very many, multiple other 12-Step Programs like Al-Anon and Adult Children of Alcoholics, among my very, very many other 12-Step Programs, sister!!!!!! It was so hard and such a challenge to relocate to a new state and a new town only being six weeks clean and sober but miracles do very much indeed happen, and I think getting away from my family and that influence and the new, fresh start in a new city and state, and how great a city and community Iowa City, Iowa is for certain were all positive factors which facilitated my very growth, recoveries, learning, and healing, sisterfriend!!!!!! Wow!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!
Sister, I’m just so, so very incredibly blessed, and I thank our Spirit continually for YOU, Patricia, and I am just so, so very incredibly blessed with YOU, sisterfriend, as my sisterfriend Christian Quaker white woman who you are For Always so, so very much friend and sister of mine!!!!! Wow!!!!! Yay!!!!!! I For Always daily and very frequently pray for and think of YOU, Patricia, your so very dear husband, your Loved One in the long-term care facility, for all of the rest of your awesome family, for your so very blessedly pure in heart friendsfamily at your Friends Meeting at Cambridge, for all of your other friends, and I thank-YOU, Patricia, and all of you for praying for and thinking of me, too!!!! I can just feel all of your prayers and thoughts for me which are greatly and immensely blessing me and helping me!!!!!! I just love all of you as my sisters and brothers and our Good God’s children, and keep each and every one of you covered in my prayers and thoughts sending to all of you such great positive energy!!!!! Spirit just so, so very much loves and cherishes YOU, Patricia, and so do I!!!!!! Happy Blessed Bountiful Thanksgiving to you and to you and to so, so very especially YOU, Patricia, and to you and yours, and to each and every one of you!!!!!!(SMILE!!!!!!).
Very Warmly and Sincerely For Always, my so, so very For Always awesomely special and precious soul sisterfriend Christian Quaker white woman, Patricia, with Such Peace and Love to YOU For Always, my sister, and with Such Blessings and Such Even More Very Blessings To You For Always, my so, so very dearest and darling friend,
Yours For always soul sisterfriend Christian black woman and For Always in the very great spirit and solidarity, Sherry Gordon in Iowa City, Iowa
Sister, oops I forgot! I meant to also say that I’m so, so very eternally grateful and blessed to have my awesomely blessed friendsfamily here in my Iowa City, Iowa where I live with my church here, my Faith United Church of Christ!!!!! I just so very, very much love them all so at my Faith United Church of Christ as my so, so very dearest and darling sisterfriends and brotherfriends!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!
Dear Patricia,
Well, hello, there, Patricia!!!!! I pray, wish, and hope for you and for you and for so, so very especially YOU, Patricia, for you and for you and for you and yours with your dearest husband, your Loved One in the long-term care facility, and for each and every one of you so, so very precious, special, blessed,and beloved family A Very, Very Nice, Special, Blessed Full of Such Very Bountiful Blessings Thanksgiving to all of you and to each and every one of you!!!!!!(SMILE!!!!!). Wow, sister, I am just overflowing with such great gratitude as usual as always anyway but as I am For Always I’m so, so very grateful to God and for being a Christian with loving Jesus with all that I have with all of my very being and what a Sweet Spirit we so love and cherish, sisterfriend!!!!! I’m not only so, so very grateful for my local friends who are like family to me like with my local white sisterfriends who I just so, so very much love and cherish, but also I am just so, so very grateful for YOU, dear, dear precious Patricia as you, too, are my dearest and darling white sisterfriend Christian Quaker white woman who I also so, so very much love and cherish!!!!! Wow, sister, you have just been very incredibly kind to me all of these going on three years with me writing so voluminously to you and your awesome blog pouring out my very, very heart, and my very, very heart and spirit, and you have been very graciously and generously open to me and all that I have shared and in letting me speak and find my very voice, my so, so very precious sister and friend!!!!! Thank-you so, Patricia!!!!!! I thank God continually for YOU, Patricia!!!!!! Yay for YOU, Patricia!!!!! Yay for our sisterhood and friendship, Patricia!!!!! Yay!!!!! Wow!!!!! Yay!!!!! I so, so very much love God who has very richly blessed me full of abundance, and for all of my so special and precious sisterfriends and brotherfriends everywhere both near and far, for my so marvelous friends in all of my very, very many, multiple 12-Step Programs at my meetings which I am a very rejoicing and proud member of as a recovering person in so many ways, and in fact I am very appreciative and full of such gratitude for all of our awesome Spirit God’s children who I love and cherish so as our sisters and brothers!!!!!! God is very much indeed just so, so Very Good, So Sweet, So Very Kind, So Loving, and is For Always There For Each and Every One of Us, sisterfriend!!!!! Sister, I have seen myself not only grow as a person and in my very heart and spirit throughout 2016 but in the nearly three years in which I have been writing to you and your blog and corresponding through email and the snail mail with you I have seen myself just blossom and grow in a great many ways!!!!! YOU, Patricia, are just so, so very good for me, friend and sister of mine, and YOU help me my sisterfriend Christian Quaker woman in my very walk with our Sweet Jesus!!!!! Wow!!!!! Yay!!!!!!
Sister, I thank-you so, so very much for this marvelous link to our brilliant late Barbara Jordan’s very much indeed righteous statement, Patricia!!!! Wow, I have always just so loved and admired her since I learned about her as such a little girl back then like around the time she made this statement which I so remember really well. I remember when she died in 1996 that the LGBT magazine, The Advocate, featured a cover story on her which said on the very cover that she had hidden her lesbianism for the last twenty years of her life until her death. I had already back then been en route in my very process of being more and more out of the closet, and I told myself twenty years ago that I am just going to have to come totally out of the closet as a lesbian myself because I don’t want people to say about me when my time comes that I had hidden my lesbianism. This greatly facilitated my very process even though I was already en route doing so to come even more completely out of the closet as a lesbian black woman, sister!!!!! Wow, I am so, so very glad that I am out of the closet for sure!!!!! Patricia, I just so love and admire our great late Barbara Jordan. I think of my late mother and how she had dabbled in politics where I grew up and am originally from in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, sister. Somehow even with my late mother’s active alcoholism and other addictions she somehow had some very fine accomplishments to her credit which is such a miracle unto itself with all of the issues she had. She had become a member of the Cleveland Heights, Ohio Board of Zoning Appeals in January 1974 when I was in the sixth grade. I was so proud of Mother. She became the Chairwoman of the Zoning Board in 1982 when the previous Chairman was killed in a car accident. When I was last in touch with my family I think until her death at the age of 52 right before her 53rd birthday on Friday, November 2, 1990 the day she died I think she may have still been on the Zoning Board. I had left Ohio in September 1990 after a failed reconciliation attempt with my family when I was still in Cleveland but due to all of the abuse in every way I was unsafe and to protect my life and my sanity I left Ohio after confronting my family about all of the abuse in every way and about their active and practicing alcoholism and other addictions, and coming out to them as a lesbian and they would have none of it. I found out that she had died in January 1991 when my former therapist in Ohio who knew that I had relocated to Iowa City, Iowa had contacted my new therapist in Iowa City, Iowa that my father had contacted her to let her know that my mother had died and that he couldn’t reach me!!!!! My mind snapped to find out like that three months after the fact and I just can’t describe the feeling or find words for what that was like!!!! My former Ohio therapist knew how to contact my new Iowa City, Iowa therapist because I had to transfer my mental health therapy and psychiatric records from Ohio to Iowa City, Iowa. When I had attempted to try to reconcile with my family of origin when I was still in Ohio I had told my parents where I was currently receiving therapy and other mental health care, and I gave my mother a pamphlet about a support group I was in with the Ohio therapist for people who were both alcoholics, addicts, and who had mental health concerns. I was trying in a failed attempt to get my parents and the rest of the family to go to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous and other 12-Step Programs like I was doing and to go into their own therapy and also family therapy but I wasn’t able to get them to listen. Just breaks my very heart although I love them so, so very much and I forgave them ages ago but I don’t feel safe like with my very life reconnecting to them!!!!! I remember that Mother would compare herself to Barbara Jordan and I even would draw a comparison to Mother and Barbara Jordan. I am just amazed that Mother was able to do some good things with her activities politically in Cleveland Heights, Ohio even with her issues and her alcoholism and other addictions which were pretty bad. Somehow with my father he was somehow able to maintain his jobs with his own issues and his alcoholism and other addictions. I was just so, so very impressed with Mother, She didn’t even finish high school which she was very ashamed of and kept as such a guarded secret. She had become pregnant with my eldest brother, Joe, when she was in high school and then my parents rushed and became married right before Joe was born. She was just so smart. With very little education she self-taught herself and I was just so amazed and impressed with how she could even at all understand the materials she had to review for the Zoning Board meetings. I am saddened that she and my father abused my two older brothers and myself in every way but I still love her so and am just very proud of her for her accomplishments in spite of it all. I used to say when I was a lot younger that I would do as the great author and daughter of Joan Crawford, Christina Crawford, did in writing her tell all book about how she was abused by her mother in her book, Mommie Dearest, and I said that I’d write my own version of Mommie Dearest,the black version! I remember when I was still living with my parents that it was all that I could do on the evenings when the Zoning Board meetings were taking place when she would be drunk and high, get her out of bed, help her with her bath, help her to get dressed and out the door for her meetings!!!!!! Wow, it was just so very hard and so very painful and traumatic, too, for me, and I had enabled her a lot when I was a lot younger. I’m just so, so very glad, and so, so very incredibly blessed and grateful that I found help for myself, and that I’ve been in past, and also continuing,current, ongoing therapy for decades and clean and sober in Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous since Sunday, August 5, 1990, and also how I’m recovering in very, very many, multiple other 12-Step Programs like Al-Anon and Adult Children of Alcoholics, among my very, very many other 12-Step Programs, sister!!!!!! It was so hard and such a challenge to relocate to a new state and a new town only being six weeks clean and sober but miracles do very much indeed happen, and I think getting away from my family and that influence and the new, fresh start in a new city and state, and how great a city and community Iowa City, Iowa is for certain were all positive factors which facilitated my very growth, recoveries, learning, and healing, sisterfriend!!!!!! Wow!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!
Sister, I’m just so, so very incredibly blessed, and I thank our Spirit continually for YOU, Patricia, and I am just so, so very incredibly blessed with YOU, sisterfriend, as my sisterfriend Christian Quaker white woman who you are For Always so, so very much friend and sister of mine!!!!! Wow!!!!! Yay!!!!!! I For Always daily and very frequently pray for and think of YOU, Patricia, your so very dear husband, your Loved One in the long-term care facility, for all of the rest of your awesome family, for your so very blessedly pure in heart friendsfamily at your Friends Meeting at Cambridge, for all of your other friends, and I thank-YOU, Patricia, and all of you for praying for and thinking of me, too!!!! I can just feel all of your prayers and thoughts for me which are greatly and immensely blessing me and helping me!!!!!! I just love all of you as my sisters and brothers and our Good God’s children, and keep each and every one of you covered in my prayers and thoughts sending to all of you such great positive energy!!!!! Spirit just so, so very much loves and cherishes YOU, Patricia, and so do I!!!!!! Happy Blessed Bountiful Thanksgiving to you and to you and to so, so very especially YOU, Patricia, and to you and yours, and to each and every one of you!!!!!!(SMILE!!!!!!).
Very Warmly and Sincerely For Always, my so, so very For Always awesomely special and precious soul sisterfriend Christian Quaker white woman, Patricia, with Such Peace and Love to YOU For Always, my sister, and with Such Blessings and Such Even More Very Blessings To You For Always, my so, so very dearest and darling friend,
Yours For always soul sisterfriend Christian black woman and For Always in the very great spirit and solidarity, Sherry Gordon in Iowa City, Iowa
Sister, oops I forgot! I meant to also say that I’m so, so very eternally grateful and blessed to have my awesomely blessed friendsfamily here in my Iowa City, Iowa where I live with my church here, my Faith United Church of Christ!!!!! I just so very, very much love them all so at my Faith United Church of Christ as my so, so very dearest and darling sisterfriends and brotherfriends!!!!!! Yay!!!!!!!