Happy Birthday Ray

Loved Ones,

When Ray was sick I had this burning sense of purpose for the email to all of you.  As I went about tasks, I was thinking about the message, it was always on my heart.  Likewise today my heart is burning to share with you.

It is, I feel, one of the true tributes I can offer Ray, to remember him here for those who knew him.  On Facebook, to educate those who didn't.  So that all the things we love about him live on.  In some cases, live on anew.

I think of Ray so often.  Like he was when he was alive, he is truly the good angel on my shoulder.  There are few people who are so generous of spirit - kind of heart - giving of time - filled with joy!

That was our Ray!

I know I will never be the same having had him as an example.  I pray for more energy to try harder to be like him.  So that by some small way in me, my children will glimpse a fraction of the person their dad was!!

I thank the many people who by their own generosity of spirit, show my children the ways that Ray impacted them and the qualities that he was!!

Just by its very nature, the task of being a widow gives me less of these traits!  I reflected the other day, that perhaps this is the task of today's widows, to recover not the physical riches, the emotional ones that are lacking due to the nature of loss.

We have gone to many masses this weekend in Ray's honor.  Not coincidentally, one of the Scriptures this weekend was from Ray's funeral.  And it reminded me that it will always be a bit cloudy, our understanding of God's plan.  But that there will be a day where there is no more sadness and death is swallowed up forever.

Joy will reign.

If I focus on earthly pain, there is no end.  But if I focus on this fact, there is a way through.

To God be the glory.

Happy Birthday Ray.

not alone and not afraid -

kristin

Isaiah 25:6-9

"On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—  the best of meats and the finest of wines.  On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; he will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken.  In that day they will say,“Surely this is our God; we trusted in him, and he saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in him;  let us rejoice and be glad in his salvation.”