your wings were ready, but my heart was not. it's never easy to let go, even when the time has come and they won't suffer anymore....

I don't grieve for the person who has wasted away and whose time has come, I grieve for their life, for the way they were they live on in your memory, but only to hear their laugh or give them a hug....to have Grandpa Vermal lean around the corner in his chair to see who's coming in the door....dad walking in through the kitchen in his work clothes still wearing his hat and his house slippers on with his hot cup of coffee....Grandma Grace racing to the kitchen to whip up a cake and some sweet tea...Aunt Minerva looking down her glasses and saying, "Well, how's Debbie?" Aunt Kay feeding all her 'little birds' at family dinners...Dad, Uncle Bob, and Jim with their heads together....Uncle Dale napping on the couch behind his newspaper...rowdy softball games with Gale...Bill Brown handing out those little carved walnut or peach pit or whatever they were baskets...Uncle John...Uncle Dean telling us he was glad we got to see him....Grandma Pauline and her chatty letters and boxes of stuff she would send for Christmas and birthdays...Great Grandma Amanda and her pipe....Great Grandma Daisy swearing us to secrecy when we found her eating powdered sugar donuts in the camper in our yard during a visit...Great Aunt Betty always had a joke....and Great Great Aunt Dolly with her family stories....and the wonderful written legacys she and Grandma Pauline left us...

and not just family, but family friends.....Vern & Wynona would always pop out across the street to say hi and tell us if Grandma & Grandpa weren't home...Claudia would take us to get ice cream and to the library where she worked....Fern and Mildred would be at Grandma's setting their hair or playing cards...