Rachel Michelle Grys Doan 04-11-78
This is my Rachel. My first child. My oldest daughter. This is Rach as I will always see her and Rachel as a grown woman. She is the wife of Chad, the mom of Lilly. She is the total package. She is something I did right. Rachel came from my first marriage, which lasted less than 4 years. Her biological father chose to not be a part of her life, so Steve adopted her when she was very young. She came through that pretty much unscathed for which I am forever thankful!
As a child Rachel excelled in school. She had best friends, played outside, did all the 'kid stuff' that kids of the 70s did. In high school she was big in FHA and child care. She attended Eureka college. She has worked in some form of human services her whole life. She started out in a group home for developmentally challanged people. Then she worked at a group home for those who were mentally ill. From there she was a special education assistant at the high school. She did a short stint in customer service for the water company, but decided the money was not worth being miserable so she returned to direct service. For years she worked for our local park district in charge of programming, especially focused on special olympics. From there she went to our county wide resource center that serves all developmentally challanged adults in a work/training environment. She will be forever poor financially, but happy emotionally and that is what counts. She and her husband have followed in our footsteps and become foster parents. They gave me my first grandchild, miss Lilly. Lil was born in 2005. I have kept her everyday while mommy and daddy work. She starts kindergarten this year so it will be the first time in over 33 years that I am childfree.
Rachel is the daughter every mother longs for. She is a functional adult, but still a close memeber of the family. She is a supportive friend and shares her struggles. She and I have very few, if any, secrets...that I know of. She is a quick study and a problem solver. She is a well grounded woman and a real joy. She is the best mommy I know, doing ballet, arts and crafts, field trips, ....she reads bedtime stories, rolls hair in sponge curlers, takes walks in the rain, looks for bugs and plants flower seeds. She is growing vegetables to can and has moved into the world of driving a minivan
