Sadly, my father died in January 1992 after a 16 year battle with heart disease. He was only 73. My mother died in October 2005 following a long decline into Alzheimer’s, just 2 weeks shy of her 89th birthday. It is hard, but is the natural order of things.

My greatest sadness comes from the fact that my father adored his grandsons more than anything in life, but the young man in this picture and my youngest do not remember him because they were both so young when he died. My sister and I have spent a lot of time over the years watching our 4 boys and thinking, “Oh, Papa would love this if only he were here,” especially when her oldest got very interested in cars. (My father was an auto mechanic.)

But we can’t change the way things are … we can only remember and be confident that we will all be reunited eventually in a better place.