Our Time to Be Blessed

By Dawn Lynn Miller

Author and motivational speaker Dawn Lynn Miller spreads Gods love to readers as she pens Our Time to Be Blessed, a heartwarming tale of family triumph amidst a world of broken families and single parenting. Compiled from many tales pieced together from relatives, this true story of the authors family contains details that shaped her lifeboth positive and negativemolding her into what she is today. Here, she includes the key individualsher dad, mother, stepmother, grandmother, aunt, and cousinwho showed her that it takes a whole village to raise a child. Spiritually enlightening, honest and comical, this account is one meant to inspire and encourage individuals from all walks of life to believe that all things happen in time through prayer. Further, it strives to give hope to those who have not yet begun having the family that God intended for everyone. It is Our Time to Be Blessed as whole and healthy families, able to endure lifes tragedies and remain strong nurturing units of love, the author remarks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 20, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450095181

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Copyright © 2010 by Dawn Lynn Miller.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

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Contents

Reflections from the author

In the Beginning

Chapter One: Love, Laughter and Life

Chapter Two: The Announcement

Chapter Three: The Big C

Chapter Four: The Miracle of Remission

Chapter Five: My Rites of Passage

Chapter Six: Celebration of Life

Chapter Seven: The New Family

Chapter Eight: New Love

Chapter Nine: First Trial

Chapter Ten: Brotherly Love

Chapter Eleven: Glory Days

Chapter Twelve: Dear Old Morris Brown

Chapter Thirteen: Moving on

Marilyn Miller 072010.jpg

1940-1983

Dedication Page

To the late Marilyn Miller who never had the

opportunity to see my development into a woman

but professed it even before it was.

REFLECTIONS FROM THE AUTHOR

THIS BOOK IS the true story of my family. It was compiled from many stories pieced together from relatives and shaped by my life. It is one meant to inspire and encourage individuals from all walks of life to believe that all things happen in time through prayer and to reaffirm the belief in a strong family. I began this journey when I was 25 and then life happened now, at 38 I am completing this quest so that others can be blessed by the experience. I have had experiences that few beyond my age have ever witnessed. All of the experiences have not been positive but they have all played a part in shaping me into the woman that I am today. My father has a saying for this and never hesitates to use it. This saying being, don’t go through something but rather grow through it. This has helped me put all of my experiences into perspective for truly without them I would not have half the strength that I possess today. Experiences were not the only factors in my development. Key individuals also played a part. These individuals being my father (and mother for a period), LeeRoy Miller; my mother (the late) Marilyn Miller; my step-mother (who is more like a second mother and friend) Dorothy Barnes-Miller; my grandmother (the late) Gladys Lawrence; my aunt (my third mom), Genevieve Fitzgerald; and cousin (more like a sister and best friend) Theresa Fitzgerald-Davis and my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. All of these as well as many others were and are very meaningful characters in my life. I am a living witness that it takes a whole village to raise a child.

This is a story of family triumph in a world full of broken families and single parenting. This book strives to give hope to those that have not yet begun that you can have the family that God intended for us all. It is Our Time to Be Blessed as whole and healthy families, able to endure life’s tragedies and remain strong nurturing units of love. Walk into your blessing!

IN THE BEGINNING

MY LIFE STARTED out no different from that of today’s middle class Baptist rooted Black families of Milwaukee. My parents, LeeRoy and Marilyn, were high school sweethearts who met through my dad’s sister and my mom’s best friend, Bessie. Marilyn and Bessie were inseparable. My dad developed interest in my mom and she did likewise. They dated off and on, more on than off, throughout high school. In their senior year my dad had made up his mind to make Marilyn Reynolds his wife. In those days proposals began the old fashioned way, with the parents. My mom’s parents were divorced so it was Gladys that my dad had to face for the hand of Marilyn in holy matrimony. My grandmother, mother of with only one daughter, was not too anxious to let my mom go. When my grandmother got wind of my dad’s intentions she had her own plans for him. When he would approach her home, she would immediately leave out the back door and swear those in the home to secrecy as to her whereabouts, which were next door. This dance went on for weeks, as my grandmother would tell me, until one day while she relaxed at a friend’s home and not thinking the least about who was ringing the doorbell she was cornered by the persistent LeeRoy Miller. There in front of several of her friends stood my dad ready to ask for the hand of Marilyn Reynolds in marriage. Caught in this situation and realizing that there was no use fighting it any longer Gladys burst into laughter and gave my dad her blessing. She never doubted the quality of his character or whether he would be a good husband to her daughter but simply didn’t want to give her up.

LeeRoy and Marilyn were married in June of 1958. My dad was drafted shortly after. He humorously tells me of the letter that he received notifying him of his draft which stated,  . . . your friends and neighbors have selected you. He says he still hasn’t found out which friends or which neighbors. He was first stationed in Colorado Springs before going to Korea. He returned to Colorado where my mom joined him before they returned to Milwaukee. After seven years of marriage they had Devin Lee. He was the only child for five years before yours truly, Dawn Lynn. They chose our names very thoughtfully. They wanted us to have the same initials. My brother had the first half of my dad’s name for his middle name and I the last part of my mom’s for my middle. It wasn’t until I was 38 and found my mom’s handwritten baby book which had my middle name spelled with two n’s rather than the one of her name, that I realized I had been spelling my name wrong. It should be noted that my birth certificate always had my middle name with two n’s but my dad said that it was incorrect and that nurses disregarded what they said when they registered my name. This is a common thought of Blacks from the early days that had intentions of their children’s names being spelled one way only to get the birth certificate and see that it was entered a totally different way. This wasn’t the case as I found. My mom had intended for my middle name to be Lynn not Lyn and I guess we’ll never know why but I saw it in her own handwriting. I don’t know who was happier that my brother and I were born, my parents or my cousins. They would tell me of how my dad served as their surrogate dad taking them to church and Sunday school every week. They said that their mom, my aunt Genevieve, would call my dad whenever they were acting out. He was the disciplinarian without ever raising his hand. It drove them crazy. My cousin Theresa would often say that they couldn’t wait for he and my mom to have kids so that he would leave them alone. He is the only uncle that all my cousins address as Uncle LeeRoy no matter how old they are. He is the youngest boy of his 10 brothers and sisters but you wouldn’t know it by the respect that all in our family attribute to him. Guess he’s always been the example of respect. This is where my story begins.

CHAPTER ONE

Love, Laughter and Life

LIFE CONTINUED TO be average for the Miller Family. My Mom was my first teacher at Harambee Community School. I’ll never forget her scolding me when I was asked to give a parting comment to a classmate that was moving away and I said, Good riddance. I didn’t even know what it meant and couldn’t tell you where I heard it, but I knew I was glad that the student would be gone. Yes I was a child, who had been taught that expressing herself was a good thing and developed wisdom, but maybe this wasn’t the best choice I could have made for this situation and my mother quickly showed me that. I soon grew into the rambunctious tom boy. I played touch football in the alley with my brother and his friends with my dad as the full-time quarterback for both teams. Dad had to quarterback to reduce the alley scuffles between the aspiring neighborhood star quarterbacks. It was evening when I was only seven that my mom and dad came home with a look I had never remembered seeing before. The Miller house was one filled with love, laughter and life. Never had I or Devin ever seen or heard our father and mother argue and voices were never raised unless someone was telling a joke. But today that was all gone and a rather blank look covered the normally relaxed content look on my dad’s face. As my parents came in they asked Devin and I to come into the den, where all discussions that concerned the family took place. These talks usually centered on me having done some dumb childish antic but we won’t talk about that right now.

I came to be known to my family as the budding actress/comedienne. This title came from how well I imitated my mom’s many weight loss activities. I mean if it was advertised on television as being able to trim off unwanted pounds my mom was going to order it. The sad part was, the miracle item never worked the way the commercial claimed it would. Most of them involved a pulley of some type that was to be attached a knob. My mom would be so excited taking it out of the box and assembling it, which was minimal. She would immediately put on her workout gear which consisted of some polyester spandex shorts and a polyester tank top. She would put some cotton socks on to make it easier to go into the straps that attached to the pulleys which connected to the door knob. This was all done in our hallway which was the center of the house. My father would conveniently make his way to the den to avoid the laughter that was created by the scene. I was in a front row seat so that I wouldn’t miss a moment of this comical workout. The item came with suggested exercises and my mom would attempt each and every one. Not that she had any athletic background that allowed her to have some frame of reference for these exercises but she sure gave it her best effort. With the first move she would do one funny thing after the next which sent me into a roar of laughter. First she would place her feet in the stirrups only to have them slip out at the most inopportune time, which was usually when she was in the middle of a sit-up. This would send her head to the carpet and she, not being a cursing women, would say something like, oh wow! or Dawn! The second exclamation was because I was doubled over in laughter. She wasn’t a quitter though; she would get right back in the stirrup. This time she would stand and do some type of leg lift which didn’t work either and it was another round of laughter for