So much to say ...

I've been gone for a while. Most of you who know me also know why: Dad passed away on July 19. Even as his health had been failing for months, the end still came more suddenly than we were ready for. I brought him books to read on Wednesday; he started reading one as soon as I left that evening. I returned them to the library the following Tuesday, all but one of them unread.

If you'd like to read his obituary, you can find it here. I was pleased with how well it turned out (and, as an editor, that everything was spelled correctly).

I'm not going to dwell on it too much here, but I will give a few things that I've learned in the last few weeks:

• "A heavy heart" is not just a metaphor -- somehow it did actually feel like there was an extra weight on my chest for a few days.
  
• No matter how old you are, or how old a parent is, you still feel like an orphan when a parent dies.
• It does no good to dwell on regrets at a time like this -- we were all doing the best we could, and Dad knew that -- but I do know that if I had read this article in the New Yorker two months ago, I would have made different decisions in the last week of Dad's life. (I urge everyone who sees a time coming when they will have to make end-of-life decisions in the future -- which is, of course, all of us -- to read this article.)
• The memories that make you laugh are the ones that keep you going -- like those of our trip to the Black Hills during Sturgis week, when there were no hotel rooms to be had and Dad ended up sleeping on a picnic table.
  
• You learn how many friends you truly have at a time like this -- and for us, thankfully, the number was more than we realized.

I was really moved by the words to a song that Dad played often on his harmonica -- I'd heard them sung before, perhaps, but hadn't paid attention to them until we translated them for the funeral service program. Here they are; may they bring you as much peace as they did to me.


Kiitos, Sulle, Jumalani
Thank You, My God

Thank you, my God, for the grace in all things
that I have known throughout my life.
Thank you for the bright spring days
as well as the gloomy days of autumn.

Thank you that many, many of my prayers have been answered.
Thank you also that other requests were not answered.
Thank you that in my distress I have received help through you.
Thank you that my sins are forgiven by your Son.

Thank you for every moment of my lifetime.
Thank you for sunshine as well as darkness.
Thank you for the struggles, even for the crosses to bear for my Lord.
Thank you that you remember me always and help me in my pain.

Thank you for the flowers that were blooming along my paths.
Thank you also for the thistles that cut me.
Thank you, that your will is to give me eternal life.
In all things, O Lord, I will give you praise forever.