Around the Town: The Tale of Cara Del Harmon

By Loretta Humble/Around the Town

Cara Del Harmon was the Activity Director at Cedar Lake Nursing Home a few years ago, and a darn good one, too. Now she lives in Oklahoma and her last name is Taylor.  I kept up with her through Facebook, so I had heard bits and pieces of this story I’m about to tell you before.  But  recently it was all written up on the front page of the Sunday edition of The Lawton Constitution, above the fold, which is where the big stories go.  So now I know it is OK to share it, and now all the details are right here, easy to get right. So here goes:

Cara was adopted shortly after her birth 50 years ago. Just last year, on Valentine’s Day, she met one of her biological brothers.  And before the year had passed, she had the opportunity to save his life.

Cara says she always knew she was adopted. But although she had a happy childhood, she was always interested in finding her biological family. She started looking for them 30 years ago. But in 2004, she had some health reasons come up that gave a judge reason to unseal her adoption papers to reveal her medical history.

Cara found her biological mother and called her. They had a short conversation about medical history, but she got very little information about family.

She kept searching online for several years with no success, until while she was living down here in our area, she found an obituary of her birth mother, which was very detailed, and listed all of her other children.

Cara typed in the name of one of her brothers, Jason Lloyd, on Facebook, and found him. They started corresponding. Jason said Cara’s existence was a complete surprise to him. He said his mother had never spoke of any child other than those he grew up with.

They talked long and often, but it wasn’t until last Valentine’s Day that they met at a Starbucks in Lawton, Oklahoma.  Jason brought with him another family member to meet Cara—an aunt, Joyce Peters.  Jason told Cara she looked just like their mom.

As wonderful as this meeting was, Cara said the real miracle began when she visited Jason two weeks later, and found him very ill and in very dire circumstances. Showing up right then almost certainly saved his life.  She rushed him to the hospital. After a couple of days there, she tried to take him to her house to care for him, but another sinking spell sent him to another hospital where the doctor didn’t think he would make it. He spent days in a coma and on a ventilator.

Cara said as much trouble as she had gone to finding him, she was going to do everything she could to keep him alive. She said when he beat the odds and came out of the coma, he came out joking.

I remember that Cara always was in love with her coffee. I mean, she had signs hanging up saying how much she loved it.  I guess that runs in the family. She said when he came out of the coma, she went straight to Starbucks where they had met, and got him a cup of coffee to celebrate.

This Valentine’s Day Cara, Jason, and their Aunt Joyce all went to that same Starbucks celebrating their reunion. See what I mean?  The love of coffee is bound to run in that family.

There is more to this story, but there were a couple of things I wasn’t sure I understood. Besides I am about to run out of room.   I just contacted Cara, and she has promised to write a guest column and tell us the “rest of the story.”