A Letter to Mom

Hi Mom!

Your viewing was tonight. It went well. We hope you liked it! Bill put together some Showtune CDs to play in the background. It made for quite the send off!!!
You looked so pretty. Your white dress and your pretty white hair made you look angelic. You truly look like your in a very peaceful sleep. Even though I've now seen you 3 times and I've touched you and held you and watched you and know that you are gone...it still doesn't seem real. I'm sure as the days go on it will slowly sink in. Yes, we both know that you are here in spirit and you will continue to watch over your posterity, but it's just not the same.

I can think of so many things I will miss.
Your laugh. Your stories. Your generosity. Your gratitude. Your selflessness. You have been such a good example to all your posterity. I hope we will all take the things we have learned from you and share them with the world. It will truly make it a better place.

Thank you for blessing our lives with music! I'll never forget the night you and Dad brought home the Magnus Chord Organ and taught me my first lesson in reading music. Although that Organ is also probably why my left hand is a much weaker piano player then my right. Never-the-less, it opened a whole new world of music to me. Being to make my own music. Playing first the Magnus Chord Organ and then onto piano lessons and then, by default, occasionally having the opportunity to play the organ for church. Although I still truly don't know what I'm doing. I'm brave enough to fake it!!! Thanks for the music!

Thanks for teaching me to be responsible. Of course there were sometimes in my life that I wasn't very responsible. I still have learned responsibility from you.

Thanks for teaching us to put God first. Thanks for blessing our home with the Gospel of Jesus Christ and for helping us become a forever family!

Thanks for making the 7 Dwarfs our family symbol. Who would've thunk it would last all these years?!!!

Thanks for all the fun! For driving me and my friends everywhere. The adventures in Frightening Falcon are still some of the greatest memories. Thanks for always picking people up to get them where they needed to be! It was a never problem for you to drive from one end of town to the other to pick everyone up.

Thanks for your generosity. Not just towards me but towards all of us! You never saw the reason for money to be sitting in a bank when it could be blessing the lives of others and you have freely given and we all have been blessed by it!

Thanks for trusting me enough to let me go. Just like that goofy saying, you set me free and I came back...so I really am yours!

Thanks for letting me be such a huge part of your last 9 years! As Eddie say, "It's an honor and a privilege" to have been able to serve you. I will admit it wasn't always easy and I wasn't always where I wanted to be, but it has provided more learning and growth. I probably didn't even realize how much and probably still have lots to learn....your always the one to get me started though. Although I do know I don't ever want to work in the medical field.

Thanks for your patience, your endurance and for letting me know you were ready to go. It's the only thing that is making this a little bit easier. I know you and Dad are together and with so many other family members and friends. It makes it less scary to join you someday...but please not anytime soon!

There are so many other things I should thank you for, but my brain is almost numb and I should get to bed. We have a big day tomorrow! I hope you will enjoy your send off.

I'm not speaking at your funeral, so this is part of my farewell. Perhaps I'll keep writing you on your blog! That's the question I should've asked you to answer for me!! Do they have blogs in Heaven? Not, is Elvis really dead?!! You haven't answered yet though!

I will think of you everyday! Your bed is still up in the front room. Eddie asked tonight if I was going to be okay when he took it down. I told him I didn't know. Because you've been out of the house since August 7th....it's hard not to think you're just across the river. I guess I should remember now...you're closer than that!!! That is what I will have to keep remembering!

I remember back a few years ago when we were sharing a room...every night before we went to sleep, you would thank me for everything I had done for you that day! You were so gracious. I hope to be that gracious someday! Thanks for your gratitude!

I will miss you more as time goes on and it really sinks in that you are gone, but we are a forever family and I have that to look forward to. Oh yeah! Thank you for taking Eddie in and for loving him, sometimes in spite of him. We are all works in progress and he's still having a hard time adjusting to this passive family! I hope that someday others will see the good in him and be able to forgive, until that day...my love will see him through and your love and kindness will be an example for him to follow as it already is!

Okay, I'm done for now!

I'll miss you and love you forever!

Bon Voyage!

Sandy