Dennis,
I can't believe it's been a year that you've been gone. Even though we hadn't kept in touch as much as I would have liked to, I always will think of you as a very close and wonderful friend. You could captivate an audience of any age with your charisma and stories. I have met few as geniune as you. Before going to our different parts of the country, you gave me a gift. You provided me with "dinosaur dung." I carry it with me every day. It's a small way to hold on to the memories I can never get back.
God placed you in my life. He used you. I can never thank you enough. Your presence and support helped me process and cope with some of the hardest news I've had to process. No one wants to lose a friend, and when I found out that I'd also lost you, I asked myself how I can deal with the loss of you when you're the one that helped me deal in the past. While I had heard the beautiful flute play before, I cannot hear it now without remembering you, and the tribute you played to AJ. I smell sage and my eyes swell with tears. Not always out of sadness, just out of the mix of emotions that you provided me with years ago, when you comforted Lacey and I into the morning hours. We were away from family and the friends we had known. You stepped up and became more of a friend than I ever could have imagined.
Even though we didn't visit frequently, I always treasured our conversations. You would leave me feeling spiritually and emotionally filled. I can only hope I can have a similar impact on the people I interact with.
In the pictures, writings and communication I have with Terah, I can see you in the hearts, minds and souls of Teah, Nolan and Nakai. I can imagine you looking down and smiling, proud of your children and the legacy you left behind.
I miss you, Dennis. I want to thank you for the impact that you had on my life. You left your footprints on my heart, and they will stay there forever.
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memories. Show all posts
Friday, April 2, 2010
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Interpretation
A lot happens in an hour, a day, a week, a month, a year, a lifetime. It's weird to think that each of us remembers how things happen in our own separate way. This really came to my attention while we each were reading my Auntie Mary's beginnings of her novel.
Memories are exactly that, how you remember it, and she made sure to tell that to her sisters prior to reading her writings. With Grandma Gick gone, her children often get into many arguments and battles, ending up in phone calls to other family members asking for the "answer" which still doesn't seem to solve the debate.
With these discussions being brought up frequently this weekend with yet again, another wonderful "family" gathering, it made me think. I have all my moments remembered in my mind and with some on paper. However, very few of those events happened to me while I was alone. It's weird to think that how I remember things, may not be how they really happened - or at least how others think they happened. Even if you keep emotion and personal opinion out of stories to keep it as matter-of-factly as possible, individual interpretation always seems to be different.
I wish Mary luck to her new position as an author =) and expect a signed copy once completed. I also encourage her siblings to write the same stories, but with their interpretation of "what really happened" and it can be a series!
Write on, make your life the most enjoyable story to read, cry to, laugh to, and pass on to others!
Memories are exactly that, how you remember it, and she made sure to tell that to her sisters prior to reading her writings. With Grandma Gick gone, her children often get into many arguments and battles, ending up in phone calls to other family members asking for the "answer" which still doesn't seem to solve the debate.
With these discussions being brought up frequently this weekend with yet again, another wonderful "family" gathering, it made me think. I have all my moments remembered in my mind and with some on paper. However, very few of those events happened to me while I was alone. It's weird to think that how I remember things, may not be how they really happened - or at least how others think they happened. Even if you keep emotion and personal opinion out of stories to keep it as matter-of-factly as possible, individual interpretation always seems to be different.
I wish Mary luck to her new position as an author =) and expect a signed copy once completed. I also encourage her siblings to write the same stories, but with their interpretation of "what really happened" and it can be a series!
Write on, make your life the most enjoyable story to read, cry to, laugh to, and pass on to others!
Sunday, November 30, 2008
It's a Crazy Life
Yesterday my parents and I went up to Pierre to see my grandparents and some of his brothers. Family gathers are when I think a lot of things. My newest revelation: isn't it weird what types of memories and things we remember from way back when?
As we were sitting there watching the taped version of Adelyn's vocal concert, grandpa asked my dad what that song the little girl was singing outside the 2nd floor window in Huron when they were cutting down a tree in the yard. My dad replies that it was the Jungle Book song, The Bear Necessities.
That memory has no significant value in life and didn't really help form my grandfather or father into the people they've become. But the memory of it happening, definitely brought smiles and laughter back to the faces of my grandparents, dad, uncles, and all of us as they were telling us the story.
The things our brain holds onto amazes me.
If anyone asks me about my family and reunions, I remember back to camping in Pierre the weekend of the Sturgis biker rally - and playing spoons and cards with some of the bikers underneath the picnic shelter as it POURED. I remember eating watermelon
wedges with my cousins that were bigger than our head and having seed spitting contests. I remember watching my cousins Matt and Tim light candles for Sarah's wedding and one of them starting the leaves around the candles on fire. I remember picking oranges off Uncle David's tree for fresh orange juice; and my brother running from the waves on the beach in California and crying when his superman shoes got wet (he was 5 - so not yesterday or anything). I remember Lee's kids and I listening to Chloe and Adelyn tell us "ghost" stories at the campground in Wall as the train went by every 10 minutes...then watching our tent blow away when we all got out in the morning because the wind and storm was so bad (but I distinctly remembering we told my dad and he said, "no the weather and the tent are fine, just go to sleep"). I remember tunneling through snow drifts with my mom's family over Christmas in the church parking lot across from grandpa's.
Obviously there is a lot more to my relationships with my family than these memories - but I think these memories are what make these relationships important. It's not the big things we do with them. It's the fun "blurps" that happen with those people that make you smile, laugh, cry, giggle, sigh, shake your head, or zone out into many more happy memories.
I encourage all of you to allow yourself time to just think, zone out, and remember things in our past that aren't "significant" but make life fun.
As we were sitting there watching the taped version of Adelyn's vocal concert, grandpa asked my dad what that song the little girl was singing outside the 2nd floor window in Huron when they were cutting down a tree in the yard. My dad replies that it was the Jungle Book song, The Bear Necessities.
That memory has no significant value in life and didn't really help form my grandfather or father into the people they've become. But the memory of it happening, definitely brought smiles and laughter back to the faces of my grandparents, dad, uncles, and all of us as they were telling us the story.
The things our brain holds onto amazes me.
If anyone asks me about my family and reunions, I remember back to camping in Pierre the weekend of the Sturgis biker rally - and playing spoons and cards with some of the bikers underneath the picnic shelter as it POURED. I remember eating watermelon
wedges with my cousins that were bigger than our head and having seed spitting contests. I remember watching my cousins Matt and Tim light candles for Sarah's wedding and one of them starting the leaves around the candles on fire. I remember picking oranges off Uncle David's tree for fresh orange juice; and my brother running from the waves on the beach in California and crying when his superman shoes got wet (he was 5 - so not yesterday or anything). I remember Lee's kids and I listening to Chloe and Adelyn tell us "ghost" stories at the campground in Wall as the train went by every 10 minutes...then watching our tent blow away when we all got out in the morning because the wind and storm was so bad (but I distinctly remembering we told my dad and he said, "no the weather and the tent are fine, just go to sleep"). I remember tunneling through snow drifts with my mom's family over Christmas in the church parking lot across from grandpa's.
Obviously there is a lot more to my relationships with my family than these memories - but I think these memories are what make these relationships important. It's not the big things we do with them. It's the fun "blurps" that happen with those people that make you smile, laugh, cry, giggle, sigh, shake your head, or zone out into many more happy memories.
I encourage all of you to allow yourself time to just think, zone out, and remember things in our past that aren't "significant" but make life fun.
Monday, September 8, 2008
The Old
Isn't it so interesting how things with such little value can hold such a place on our heart. My mom called me the other day to let me know they are having a rummage sale this weekend, long story short - come get your stuff out of our house or we sell it. No, it wasn't that bad, but yes, I do need to clear stuff out of there. After looking through the rows of items they have lined up in the garage, I gained some good house ware items that I was in dire need of, but I just didn't know it until this evening.
As I was going through my closet from high school I found pictures from every event I attended and every one's senior pictures that I had collected. Why is it so hard to throw pictures away, even when you don't speak to or even know the person in the picture with you anymore?
In a time where it is so easy to lose touch with so many people, it feels like you are keeping them close to you when you hold on to those items that trigger your happy memories. It's why I still have my grandmothers hair brush. It's the brush that she would brush my hair with after I would sit and watch her brush hers. It's why I have some of my mother's jewelry and my father's trophy. I have a flag my brother had ripped off a banner from one of his cross country meets and jokingly gave it to me as a "souvenir." All of these collections are in addition to the millions of pictures I have between my boxes, computers and memories.
With family and friends scattered around the world, sometimes you want to have those memories close, in a form of something that you can hold and take with you. I know many of the items I told my parents that I wanted to keep would mean nothing to many, but they mean a lot to me.
As I was going through my closet from high school I found pictures from every event I attended and every one's senior pictures that I had collected. Why is it so hard to throw pictures away, even when you don't speak to or even know the person in the picture with you anymore?
creative old school senior pic...
I came across some presents I had collected over the years (no offense to some people), but they weren't the most practical of things to give, but yet, I just couldn't let them go. For example, I had a cow (my favorite animal) that you hang from the ceiling and he has wings that flap. Now who wants a flying cow in their house....but yet it was a present from a dear friend, and I appreciate that. I also had received a frisbee (still unused), a cow shaped pillow, a soccer ball (unused and now rather flat), etc., all of which still lay in a box in my closet.
In a time where it is so easy to lose touch with so many people, it feels like you are keeping them close to you when you hold on to those items that trigger your happy memories. It's why I still have my grandmothers hair brush. It's the brush that she would brush my hair with after I would sit and watch her brush hers. It's why I have some of my mother's jewelry and my father's trophy. I have a flag my brother had ripped off a banner from one of his cross country meets and jokingly gave it to me as a "souvenir." All of these collections are in addition to the millions of pictures I have between my boxes, computers and memories.
With family and friends scattered around the world, sometimes you want to have those memories close, in a form of something that you can hold and take with you. I know many of the items I told my parents that I wanted to keep would mean nothing to many, but they mean a lot to me.
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