Thank You

That's all I can say. Thank you. Thank you for each and every comment, email, and message. Thank you for your prayers and kind words and love. Please, please know that I read every single one...more than once. Please know that they held me up. They steadied me. They consoled me, and gave me hope in the darkest of days.

We laid my dear, sweet father to rest. And now the reality of life without him begins. I will be spending the weekend with my family, writing thank you cards and sharing stories and crying tears, I am sure. I will be back to Blogging next week. But in the meantime, I pray you know how much you have helped me and filled my aching heart with love. Below, I am sharing the most beautiful poem that the wonderful Hospice workers shared with us.

Gone From My Sightby Henry Van Dyke

 

 

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

Then, 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,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

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

And that is dying...

 

 

Holding my sweet Daddy's hand...one of the last times I visited with him...