In the spring of 2015, my wife and six year old daughter found baby Gracie outside of our home. He was just a couple of days old and there was no mommy bird in sight, so they brought him inside. As a family, over the following 4 weeks, we helped Gracie become strong to prepare him for his release back into the Wild... and he returned. While remaining a wild blue jay, Gracie came to play and spend time with us each day, even visiting my daughter at school. Soon after, Dina was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and it was devastating for us all. We all rallied behind Dina, and so did Gracie. His visits became longer, and our fears, uncertainty and sadness was replaced with feelings of love and laughter. Today, more than 3 years after Gracie's rescue, he has recently had his fifth brood of babies. It is a very tough and unpredictable world out there in the wild, and we are so very proud of Gracie. After several months of chemotherapy and three major surgeries over the course of a year and a half , Dina has received her second PET scan showing no evidence of disease and we are grateful. As a family we hit a rough patch for a while, which not only included Dina's Ovarian Cancer battle, but a Melanoma scare for me. Obstacles such as these can certainly bring turmoil to a family, and have an effect on a child, but by the grace of god our daughter has continued to thrive and has had one of her best years ever. Through it all, we are thankful to be such a big part of Gracie's life. Our story has been shared through People magazine, the dodo and other media companies. I continue to document every bit of our life with Gracie through video and photographs and it would be an honor to have our content shared with your incredible audience. For those that would like to see and hear more about our life with Gracie, I have written two books, the first of which, Gracie's Wild Adventures can be found on Amazon. I am seeking a publisher for the second book now.
