THANK YOU

I said yesterday that my last post about my dad would be yesterday.  I lied.  Well, I actually forgot a couple of things I wanted to say and instead of revising the post, I thought I'd make a new one instead.

First of all, THANK YOU to all my friends and family that have been so comforting and wonderful to me during this difficult time.  I feel very loved and it doesn't feel any better to know how much people care than at a time like this.

THANK YOU to all the people who sent me flowers to my home and to my work; Tanya, Kayla, Kim, Lorrie, Aaron, Beth, Carrie, Catha, Deanna, Tiffany, Jill and Brent.  They brightened up my days.

THANK YOU to my employer and Michael's employer for sending beautiful flowers to the funeral home for the visitation/memorial service.

This was in one of the booklets that hospice gave us and I love it:

I am standing upon the seashore.  A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.  She is an object of beauty and strength.  I stand and watch her until at length is hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.  

The someone at my side says: "There, she is gone!"

"Gone Where?"

Gone from my sight.  That is all.  She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear the load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not her.  And just at the moment when someone at my side says: "She is gone!" There are other eyes watching her coming and the other voices ready to take up the glad shout: "Here she comes!"

And that is dying.

-Henry Van Dyke