The Last Gift

By Daphne Maddison

Every October 17th she said a prayer, and the memories came flooding back all over again. For 68 years, a secret was kept buried deep inside her heart; the face of a baby girl, whose birthday it was. She had no pictures to look at, no keepsakes, just images in her mind, flashbacks of a time her heart was broken.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973624516

Daphne Maddison

Daphne Maddison was born in England, and immigrated to the United States as a child with her family. Educated in Pasadena, California, attending the local college, she studied as an art major. She today, has used her knowledge in design to run a successful woman-owned business for over 28 years; an accomplished designer, and a prominent figure in the local town of Monrovia, where her boutique, House of Windsor (named for her heritage), is located. She lives today in Upland, California, with her husband of 30 years, Keith, and discovered the love of writing as a way to heal a great loss. She is a first-time author and was inspired to write this book to give others hope in their journey to search for lost loved ones.

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Copyright © 2018 Daphne Maddison.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-2450-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2449-3 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2451-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018903881

WestBow Press rev. date: 04/17/2018

INTRODUCTION

On September 11, 2015, Patriot Day in America, Arthur Gordon Royle left this earth and went to heaven. His last gift was to be found 46 days later.

Who would have ever thought that at 93 years of age, with a rambling sentence about never holding that baby would turn out to be the gift of a sister, his last gift to his family; the sister they never knew they had.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1   A Special Birthday, March 5, 2013

Ten Simple Words Uncovered a Secret Kept for 68 Years

Chapter 2   Hearts Broken, May 8, 1945

A Forbidden Love!

Chapter 3   New Friends

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy

Chapter 4   Despair

Never Utter Her Name

Chapter 5   A New Beginning

A Life Shrouded in Secrets

Chapter 6   California or Bust

Happy New Year’s, Arthur!

Chapter 7   The Search Begins, March 5, 2013

A Needle in a Haystack ~ One Chance in a Million!

Chapter 8   A Hero’s Goodbye, September 11, 2015

The Gift of Hope

Chapter 9   A Milestone Birthday, October 17, 2015

In Ten Short Days, Our Lives Would Be Changed Forever!

Chapter 10 The Final Link, October 27, 2015

A Frantic Search for Hidden Papers

Chapter 11 The Connection

The Past She Had Kept So Well Concealed!

Chapter 12 Rebecca Battersby Podmore

July 25, 1884 – June 21, 1969

Chapter 13 Margaret Podmore Royle

April 14, 1925 – July 25, 2016

Dedication

Epilogue

About the Author

CHAPTER 1

A Special Birthday, March 5, 2013

Ten Simple Words Uncovered a Secret Kept for 68 Years

The room was warm and cozy; a blazing fire had been lit all day to keep out the chill from the weather outside; it was a room full of pictures, of family memories past and present, of happy times. Their home had always been a place to gather for all family occasions; they were the glue that held their family together, the cement that seemed to bond them all in good times and in bad. It was late in the afternoon, when everyone gathered to celebrate their youngest daughter’s birthday; a birthday none of them would ever forget.

Outside the sky was dark and overcast; a light rain had been falling most of the day, the type of rain that just wets you enough that you can’t get warm. The dull, grey clouds above would surely mean more bad weather to come; something that was so seldom seen in the sunshine of California in March.

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Some 60 years before, Arthur and Margaret had arrived as a young couple from England in the mid-1950s, to raise their family in the Land of Opportunity, America. Through hard work and loving hands, they had succeeded beyond all their expectations; their entire life they had created a close-knit family who seemed always to be there for one another. They had three children, two girls and a boy, and a multitude of grandchildren; and when they were all together it could be quite chaotic, but Arthur and Margaret loved their times with them, it was times like this they lived for.

As they sat by the fire, surveying the family that was theirs, age had rapidly crept up on them, the twilight of their years to be shared surrounded by those they loved so dearly. They had been together now almost 68 years, through good times and bad, and this was one of the good ones; their youngest, Elaine, was celebrating her birthday. She had been the baby no one expected, the change-of-life baby, their final child, and she was cherished far beyond words by the both of them. Where and how did all the years go? They had asked themselves that over and over that day; 52 years since their last child was born!

As the family gathered round, next to the warmth of the crackling fire, the conversation had started out innocently enough, everyone trying desperately to help their father with his memory, which was so rapidly slipping away to Alzheimer’s. This once wonderfully funny man, who had told the best of stories, and who had taken such good care of his family, their patriarch, was losing his mind so quickly and there was little they could do to help, other than to be there for him; to touch him, and hold him, and share with him the memories of past happy times. Piece by piece of the person he once was disappearing with each day; as he was slipping away into a world of his own; the tragedy of losing him this way seemed far worse than anything imaginable that could be inflicted on someone who had been so good to others. He was a man who had been a wonderful son to his mother, a loving and devoted husband to his wife, and a good and protective brother to his sisters, Lily, Irene and Kathleen; but to his three children, a Dad was what he had been best at. He was a man who led by the example of love, and of hard work, he was a Dad who always made you feel safe, like nothing bad could ever happen because he was there. He was the Dad who spent endless hours running up and down a field, helping them learn to fly the kite he made for them; a Dad who would sit up all night and hold them when they were sick; a Dad who encouraged them with any sport they chose, and who stood on the sidelines cheering them on; he was a Dad who rose before the sun to get them to swim practice before he left for work; he was the type of Dad the movies write about.

He had never been a tall man, standing only 5’7" in his prime, but he had always been able bodied; helping every family member with any task that was called for. Even in his nineties, struggling with a walker to get around, he had wanted to help. He was a handsome man his entire life, even now, he had not lost the twinkle in his beautiful pool blue eyes. However, the Alzheimer’s was taking its toll, and he was rapidly becoming more frail and weak, his hands had once been so strong, these had been the hands of a man that had been gentle enough to pick up a child to love them when they cried; the hands of a man who would build a home for his family; a man who never faltered in his love and commitment in caring for others; and now, they were the hands of a man, who at 93, needed holding.

Arthur could very often remember far back in his memory, way back to his childhood days in England; back to the war years, his time spent in India and Africa during World War II, and yet this particular day he was really struggling. With all the hustle and bustle that was going on in the room that afternoon, he was confused even more than normal; so to help him understand the birthday they were celebrating that day, they asked him, Tell us a story about Elaine when she was a baby; with a quizzical look in his eyes, almost as if he was trying to identify what was being said, he gazed around the living room at all their faces, then towards the windows, and the rain drizzling down outside; Something seemed to trigger his memory, as things often did….had it been the rain hitting the windows, was it raining the day she told him? He seemed to hesitate as he looked back; then slowly came his response, a response that was about to rock their family’s world; ten magic words were uttered from his lips: I never saw that baby, I never held that baby. His mind had been so muddled in a myriad of thoughts and then, out of nowhere, a sentence that made absolutely little, if no sense, to anyone in the room except one person, his wife Margaret. It was not unusual that he could not remember things, but then a sudden sob turned all their heads in one direction;