Brandi’s health began to climb from weak and sickly to strong and healthy. She is currently teaching drafting to high school students in Georgia. She is also continuing her own education, taking night and online courses. With her husband, Richard, they have two beautiful children who are also gifted.
My doctor advised against having another child even though the odds of conceiving were extremely low. My husband wanted a son, but I wasn’t sure I could survive another super active child. The Lord saw fit for me to give birth to a beautiful son in July of 1978. Although Michael was very different from his sister in personality and temperament, he was also gifted and high maintenance in his own way. Michael has a form of autism and was unable to form close relationships until I took him out of junior high and home schooled him. He graduated at seventeen and enrolled in a local community college.
Michael had been working part-time with his father in Mike’s construction business. One Sunday night in September of 1995, Michael had stayed up late with a group of friends, playing cards. He didn’t mention this to us the next morning as his father gave him instructions and sent him on to the constructions site while Mike went to pick up building materials in the opposite direction. I left for work at the center I supervised for a mental health agency. A short time after I arrived, I received a phone call from the Sheriff’s office in the county Michael had driven to in his father’s van. I heard accident, very bad, come immediately. I was in shock as I called Brandi at work. Before she could get to the center and pick me up, I received a call from the hospital Michael was being taken to. This time I heard don’t rush, don’t want you to get in an accident, paramedic has called in, patient will be dead on arrival. When Brandi walked into the center, I was sobbing uncontrollably. She refused to believe her baby brother was dead. We, by the grace of God, made it safely to the Crosby Memorial Hospital, forty-five minutes away, in under twenty minutes.
