Thank You

I want to personally thank everyone for the overwhelming show of support over this past week. It sure makes things a whole lot easier to know there are so many people out there who care. All of the kind words and well wishes have done wonders to help us get through the week to ensure we gave dad the service he deserved, and I feel we were successful in doing just that. I also cannot express enough how much I appreciate all of the help in coordinating the services. Each and every single person that contributed food, pictures, stories and even hugs are the ones who made it such a special event. Dad will be missed, but he would have wanted us to carry on.

The past week has been a whirlwind, and I haven't even had a chance to think about what happened. Emotions have been a roller coaster ride for our entire family, but now that things are starting to settle down a bit, life appears to be returning to normal.

I fully intended to be able to display my speech at the funeral, but never was able to put it on paper. My major tribute to my dad was going to be the slide show, so that took my full attention and time. I was literally working on the slide show until an hour before the funeral. Not to mention I still had to shower, set up the equipment at the hall, and get dressed.

The speech was going to be a very well organized, and well thought out speech. Unfortunately, I didn't have anything written when I stepped up to the mic, but I knew what I wanted to say. I'm not the best public speaker, so even though I knew what I wanted to say...that all went out the window when I saw all the people (more on that in a second). My mind went blank, and I ended up just speaking from my heart. I don't know how long it lasted, or if it was mostly incoherent ramblings, but I did say something, and that was what was important to me.

As for the amount of people that showed up...

I fully expected to see a bunch of people there, but I didn't expect to see all the pews full, people standing around the walls, people on the balcony, and people lined up all the way outside the church down the steps and on to who knows where. I thought it might be standing room only, but there wasn't even standing room left. When we carried Dad outside, people were already lined up around the "Funeral Coach". It didn't dawn on me then that they didn't beat us out there...they were there the whole time. They never made it inside the church. This is saying a lot since it was a very hot day, and being a Catholic funeral, it wasn't just a few minutes long...it was very long. So to any of you out there that happened to make it to the services, and were standing outside for over an hour in the hot sun, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It made me feel very proud when I heard that the funeral director told my mom it was the largest showing for any funeral he's been to in his 7 years here in Susanville.

So once again, thank you all. Thank you for being there, thank you for sending cards, flowers, and food. Thank you for keeping us all in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you for sharing those funny stories about dad. As close as dad and I were, I'm still learning more about him every single day. He will be missed.