Features Reporter
Photo by: Michael Wong
When Renee Oppenheim Peacock and her husband moved from Grand Junction to Hawaii almost 20 years ago, they had no idea it would lead to a story so worthy of telling, a book would be written about it. And little did Peacock know that she would be the one to write it.
“I always knew I wanted to write something, and this was a subject that had to be written about,” Peacock said. “Josiah was an exceptional child.”
The “Josiah” she is referring to is just one of Peacock and her husband Jan’s six children, four of whom are adopted. The focus of Peacock’s book, “Monkeys and the Chair: Josiah’s Story,” is Josiah – the fun-loving, thrill-seeking, extraordinary child who made an impact on his family’s life, as well as everyone else blessed with the opportunity to have met him.
“I was adopted, and my husband can’t say no to a child,” Peacock said. “If we could we’d adopt 50 more, but we close it off at four. We would probably still be doing it if it were up to my husband.”
Peacock, who was born in Huntington Beach, Calif., moved to Hawaii when her husband was stationed there for the Navy. While living in Hawaii, they adopted Filipino twins Josiah and Jeremiah at three months old and their son Tyler when he was two years old. Their daughter, Gwen, was five when they adopted her upon moving back to Grand Junction. Gwen has developmental disabilities from shaken baby syndrome while Josiah was born with cerebral palsy.
Raising multiple children, two of them with special needs, was not exactly easy for Peacock and her husband. However, the task came naturally to the couple.
“It’s crazy, but you’re watching the formation of little adults,” Peacock said. “As I see them learning the important lessons, that to me is worth every second.”
Peacock, who currently works as the medical assistant to Dr. Mistry at Western Colorado Orthopedic and Sports Medicine, knew she wanted to write very early on.
“I’ve written poetry, and I’ve always liked to write,” Peacock said. “It was kind of a natural progression. The book just wrote itself. I found myself writing at three in the morning when Josiah wasn’t doing too well.”
The book goes through the stages of Peacock and her family’s life with Josiah and deals with the trials and tribulations of his disease, ultimately leading to his death on July 12 of last year – just a couple months short of his fifteenth birthday.
“There was nothing wrong with his brain as far as cognitive skills at all,” Peacock said. “I know it amazed his doctors all the time how smart he was. But once a child with that severe of a case has their systems start to break down, it’s a very rapid succession. He was very healthy most of his life, but he had surgery, and everything just started going downhill. We couldn’t get a grip on it.”
According to Peacock, Josiah was a “total thrill seeker” – he loved bowling, skiing, fishing, swimming and playing baseball. He even had people throw him off the diving board on purpose because he loved being underwater.
Keoni Fukino, a 28-year-old native of Mililani, Hawaii, has remained close with “Auntie Renee” and her family since meeting her at a church in Hawaii when he was just 12 years old.
“I’ve known all of her kids since they were babies, and I just grew up with them,” Fukino said. “Jo was my buddy. I consider him my nephew. I don’t have favorites or anything, but if I did have one, it would be Jo.”
Fukino found out about Josiah’s death the morning after Peacock had gone to the hospital he was staying at in Denver.
“He was part of my heart,” Fukino said with tears coming to his eyes. “He was always real about how he was feeling or what he thought about things, and that’s what I really appreciated about him. He was who I wanted to be.”
As for the strange title of the book, Peacock put it all in perspective.
“It was actually my husband’s idea,” she explained. “We’ve always called our kids monkeys, and they call my husband and me the ape and the gorilla. The chair is Josiah’s wheelchair. It’s not just about him, it’s about our family. We thought about making it ‘Josiah’s Story,’ but there’s just so much more to it than that.”
“Monkeys and the Chair: Josiah’s Story” was just published in February of this year, but already it has gained great recognition. Peacock is sponsored to do a book signing at the Anaheim Women of Faith Conference in California this September. The book is also being used at Central High School as part of their grief program.
“It gives me some closure, but at the same time, it’s opened a lot of doors for people going through grief,” Peacock said. “In a way, I’ve become a spokeswoman for a lot of the things we went through with him. It seems to affect everybody different.”
Peacock now has several more books in the works, one of which will be about her grandson that is schizophrenic and another about being “lifty at fifty,” as she put it. For now, she is going about as what she likes to call “the cream-filled center in the Oreo cookie of life” with her husband and all of their children, biological and adopted.
arildefonso@mavs.coloradomesa.edu
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