Diary

Surgery Day- Sept. 28, 1998-9

11:37 a.m.

As I look back in remembrance of the manifold gifts you have given me - the birthday surprises so rich with the fullness of your love and your happy offering, I bathed in the light of your joyous wishes for days and weeks afterwards. I have treasured most, however, your quiet goodwill and aspiration for all that would be best for me. You have always sacrificed yourself for me, for Chali, for others, and in these last severe and painful days still were able to remind me that "Jan likes a European breakfast, so you should get cold cuts and cheese at Betty's in Helen because they had to buy that awful sausage at Ingles", or that the bath should be thoroughly cleaned before Chali and Jan and the children arrive, and working with you to clean the house, long after you were too tired, you still brought out the stuffed toys and placed them so carefully and tenderly in the crib. I will learn, I promise, the greater sense of order that you have quietly, by example, striven to show me and I shall continue to learn from the delicacy and sweetness with which you have cared for animals, birds and plants.

11:47 a.m.

So often have I held your feet, in sickness but also in health, feeling the divinity that lay within you. Now tender memories recall the imprint of your being on my struggling aspiration to progress. O calm being of light, remember me when you travel to your resting place for I shall trail behind with arms filled with flowers of love and thankfulness.