Not flesh of my flesh, nor bone of my bone but still miraculously my own.

9/8/2007—Our Wedding

James, Alan and Gael McCollum

When you start getting to know your soul mate, you start off as friends, at least that is how Alan and I started. Our love story began because I needed help and Alan was the man that was best qualified to assist this damsel in distress. I tell the story of my distress in the eulogy I gave during his service, so most of you know it pretty well. Fast forward into the years that our relationship was on another level and we moved in together. I know, there was nothing old-fashioned about how we should have done everything, you know, dating FOREVER, not living together, no sex before marriage (TMI), but we “just knew” it was meant to be, okay. We at least did take it slow on the marriage, we agreed to date and get to know each other for a long time before marriage. There were a lot of qualities Alan possessed that made me love him so much. One of them was his sensitivity. He would never admit to it, but Alan was a sucker for a chick flick and a romantic at heart. Alan and I fell in love because we had so many similarities in our life. Not just some of the obvious ones, when you saw us together, but some that were very personal to us. Alan rarely told anyone, outside his circle, of his past. Alan’s childhood, before the adoption of James and Gael McCollum was sad and it was scary. In the phase of your relationship with your soul mate when you “pillow talk” and tell each other those personal, skeletons in the closet kind of things, you gringe and hope for the best, because you just never know how the other will react. Will they accept, scars and all? Will you be shamed by the other because of them? Is it just too much baggage to accept? All those questions loom over you while you pour your heart out and leave yourself vulnerable to the other, hoping for acceptance and love. Alan’s story shook me to the core when I heard it. We cried together and we accepted each other’s childhood, because it was so similar and so heart breaking for us both. Although some of you do know both of our child hood stories, I am not sure I am ready to provide those details just yet. Just know, the man Alan became was ALL due to the upbringing and love by James and Gael McCollum. Alan would often tell me, “Babe, do you think I would have been a different man if my parents had not adopted me?” “Yes, I do.” I told him he was so very blessed that God chose these parents for him. They were such beautiful, kind and loving parents to Alan. They were gentle and generous and when I met them, I immediately fell in love with both of them. James was a very tall man, but the biggest teddy bear. I loved our conversations we used to have together. Gael was soft-spoken and smart, so opinionated and witty. The McCollum’s were both teachers in their careers, but when I met them in 2005, they were already retired. Alan met Gael because she was his 2nd grade teacher. The story is really quite touching and personal to them both. They collided into each other’s life not by coincidence but because God knew they needed each other. After having to repeat 2nd grade due in part to Alan’s primarily language being Spanish, Alan and Gael spent that second year together getting to know each other and then, Gael was in love with this little boy that was in foster care and needed his forever home. The McCollum’s adopted Alan and raised him as their own until he graduated and left for the Army. I know Alan tells me he broke his parent’s heart when he decided to leave to the Army because they expected he would stay and go to college in Reno, but Alan tells the reason like this. He said he felt it was his way to actually show them both his gratitude for all they did for him that the least he could do was do something for himself now and live independent and show them the result of their upbringing. He did not want to take more from them, like a college education, because he felt his childhood and then adolescent years were so good to him, he felt ashamed to continue to depend on them and any more expense they would give to get him through school, he just couldn’t do it. But, look what that decision did for us, we met because of his decision to join the Army! Everything surely does happen for a reason, I know this so well. Alan’s biggest regret was always being so far away from his parents as they both got older and had a harder time living in their home during the rough winter months. He felt horrible that he was young and able-body but not free to take the time to help them with the house during the rougher winter months. He was always away training or at the job but committed to important duties that made it impossible to take long time away from the mission. He really beat himself up for not being there when his dad passed away in 2010. I remember that year all too well, as I too lost someone very close to me. In March 2010 my brother died of a massive heart attack. It broke me. Alan helped me get through that horrible time in my life, just as soon as I felt myself getting better, his father died in October of 2010. It was then my turn to help Alan get through the broken heart and then help his mother with everything she needed to do as a widow. Jim and Gael were an example to us of what a true love story was. Alan wanted that for us. Alan emulated the examples of his parents to show me what love was. My husband made the entire 16 years together a true love story for me. That saying “Fairy Tales Do Come True”….YES THEY DO and DID FOR ME. Alan went through a rough time getting over the death of his father. It was hard on his career as well and soon after the death, Alan was going through a rough patch in his career that eventually caused us one last move from Northern Virginia to Arizona, where he retired in 2013. That is about the time he joined the police department and then his mother passed away. Those events created a whirl-wind of other events that was hard for us. It was a rough few years of our marriage with retirement, moving state to state with our kids, the deaths and then a new career for him. We dealt with a lot of stress in our marriage during that time. Despite the stress and heartache, Alan and I remained strong but were badly bruised and very vulnerable to people that were jealous of our marriage. It was hard to keep it all together and private, still, to this day, we did our best. We never claimed to have the perfect marriage but we also never let anyone into our marriage that wasn’t close friends or family that positively influenced us or prayed for us. Going back to James and Gael. Until I met Alan, I never knew anyone that was adopted. It was very special to me to see the love and compassion that the McCollum’s had for Alan. How these two people could love, unconditionally this little boy that was “Not flesh of my flesh nor bone of my bone” but looking at them together, you would have never guessed that Alan wasn’t their own flesh and blood. It was a special love and bond that was formed when the McCollum’s adopted Alan and made him their son. Alan never felt as though he wasn’t a part of their blood because they loved him so deeply and never made Alan feel otherwise. I wrote the title of this story as such so you can understand the love of the McCollum’s for Alan. They were the parents that God chose for Alan in his moment of need. They poured so much love and support into this little boy, even now, as I go through old photos of them, I see the love over and over. The smiles and hugs and genuine love in just the photos, convinces me of what true love looked like. Alan loved being a McCollum. He even has the McCollum family crest hanging in our office, displaying it with pride, because that is who he was. The beautiful love story of Alan and I didn’t just include us, it included his parents and our daughters. To truly have a love story, you have to include all the pieces that build that story. The beginning of Alan’s life story may have been sad and scary, but if you saw how the rest of his life unfolded because of who he became when God put him on the path with the McCollum’s, you would then understand the man you got to know later in his life. Alan was kind, compassionate and patient because of the people that raised him. Again, I thank God for allowing me those years to be a part of the McCollum family and experience the love of parents. I didn’t have “parents” like that. My mom raised me alone, so I appreciated the experience I was given to see a Mom and a Dad raise a child together and then the product of that who became my husband and father to my girls. It was a validation to me that true love does exist in so many ways. In parents, in husbands and in children because I was witness to all those examples. I wish it didn’t end and I could live in those moments forever because for that time, it was perfect.

………………………But Still Miraculously My Own.