Three weeks ago I said goodbye to your weakened body, for I knew your spirit was ready to ascend.  Our eyes will never meet; smiles given to one another are forever lost; laughter once heard is now mute; our united voices are now soloed; and our clasped hands are eternally separated

Afghans, quilts, shawls you created for me.   They are but tangible entities affording me the context into which your eyes, smile, laughter, voice, touch, and being are evermore remembered.

Photographs, birthday and Christmas cards you sent to me over the past two score yields memories of sanctifying deluge of summer rains, polychromatic autumn leaves, winters’ white heavenly falling snow, singing birds and blooming spring flowers; All these I have to the commemorate you.

I will always cherish arriving in the Westfalia to spend some 3 dog nights sleeping in my van with my children (dogs) April, Denali, Medknite, Ty-B, RD, and ND.  Once parked, with one bounding leap out of the van, they would gallop and be chased through the uncut grass of the field.  You would watch their glee from the window. The boys, now exhausted from their frolic, would furiously lap up the cold mountain stream water before being placed in their four wheeled abode.

I would then proceed into the house as Howard would pull out his maps and you would retrieve your "travel logs".  Then we spoke of Alaska and our many independent sojourns there.  For hours we reminisced and spoke of the many other places we had been; just appreciating each other as the forlorn boys watched and begs to join the soiree. 

Misty now are my forty year old water-colored memories of happier times.  Was life simpler then?  Has time re-written painful remembrances’?  College, the military, my medical training, all took me away from the security of your celestial land.  However, you left the porch light burning; a beacon for my safe and joyful returns after two decades.

But now our story must end.  Your solo expedition, into a place where no one has gone before and returned to tell us about it, begins.  Eula Mae, we mourn your passing but we know there is a heaven, so earth won’t be that bad.

Till then, Happy trails and thanks for being OUR  forever friend,

Your forever friends,

Randy, RD, ND.