Just Be Quiet!

I recently heard a story about a woman who told a co-worker that she'd been diagnosed with breast cancer. The co-worker responded with, "Wow my friend's mom died from breast cancer."

OMG!!!! 

Really?! 

There are so many things that you can say to a woman when she tells you that she's been diagnosed with breast cancer. 

Immediately responding with a death comment is NOT one of them. 

Other things that one should refrain from saying are, "They're just boobs. Since your kids are grown you don't even need them anymore. You'll get a free boob job. Now you can have the boobs you've always wanted. You should...whatever" Save the advice for when you are asked. 

Times like that silence truly is a virtue. 

What should you say?

How about: 

• I'm so sorry.
• What is your treatment plan?
• I'd like to arrange a meal train after your surgery
• I can help you with childcare
• Are you all set for transportation?
• If you ever just want to vent I'm here for you. 
• I have a friend who just went through this can I connect you? 

Although breast cancer patients may have identical diagnoses, patients react differently to the treatments and one size does not fit all. Many of the emotions a patient experiences can be very similar but others can be polar opposites. Experiences may be similar but no two are identical. The most a patient can hope for is to find a kindred spirit who feels what they feel. 

Speaking to someone who has "been there, done that" can be helpful for a couple of reasons: 

• Speaking to a survivor breeds hope
• Only another patient can truly understand what the person is experiencing physically and mentally
• Having walked the path before them can offer advice that comes from first-hand experience
• Often a patient doesn't have to describe what they feel the other person knows and can often verbalize what the "newbie" has yet to flesh out. 

Have you ever met someone who went through a similar experience to whatever you were going through at the moment and they say something that describes the thoughts that have been swirling through your brain but haven't yet been able to verbalize? 

It feels like they could read your mind and put your thoughts into words. 

It's a miraculous moment. 

Connection at a time when life feels like its unraveling is vital because it's grounding. 

Being told that you have cancer is horrific. Because of my family history with it I was not shocked but that does not mean that it wasn't terrifying. Being able to speak to someone that has already walked the path is comforting. 

It's the reason that 12 Step programs like AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) work so well. 

The flellowship of AA is just as important as the actual steps. Being with others who know exactly what you are going through is life altering. Not having to constantly fish for words that descibe feelings takes a weight of one's shoulders and allows the person to "just be." 

I belong to a group on facebook for breast cancer patients. These women were lifesaving in the early days of my diagnosis and treatment. There is so much to learn and understand overnight. I didn't have to give background, I could just pop on, post a question or say how I was feeling and BAM immediately they would begin responding. They knew exactly how I felt.

To this day, I can't put into words the level of comfort that it would give me.

I didn't have to explain anything, listen to horrifying stories of dead loved ones or respond to insensitive comments. 

If you don't know what to say, then just say so! 

Don't try to come up with something cute or offer advice on traveling a path you have never walked. It just makes you look like a know it all and, frequently, stupid! 

Mark Twain put it best, "It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to talk and remove all doubt." 

When in doubt, say nothing. 

Saying Goodbye

I cannot believe that we are almost in July! Between work, the children's programs of Karate and Tumbling and endless loads of laundry, this year is flying by. 

Not all of it has been the chaos that we encounter on a daily basis. 

There has been deep, cutting sadness that I am still attempting to deal with. 

The day after Easter I received a text message from a friend on mine asking if I had seen Facebook. I hadn't as I had been attempting to snooze on the sofa trying to recover from hosting a huge gathering for the Holiday. 

After receiving the text I jumped up and ran to my computer to see what was going on and was horrified to read that our friend had passed away at the age of 31. 

Tears sprang from my eyes and cascaded down my cheeks. 

How? How does this happen? 

I sat and prayed for understanding and acceptance but the pain was deep. 

Knowing that I would never talk to Jessie again nearly crippled me. 

Weeks passed and I found myself unable to move on. Not that I thought I should just be able to accept this, toss it aside and go on with my life but that there was an emptiness or hole that I couldn't seem to fill. 

I reached out on the very page that delivered the bad news and asked if there was a way to hold a service for her in Virginia. The pastor of the church that she had attended contacted me and her father and together we picked a date and got to work. 

Phone calls, emails and writing gave my life purpose and direction. I was no longer struggling through a quagmire of numbness that seemed to anchor my feet to the floor. 

I still miss her. I always will but that day I was able to release some of my sadness and say goodbye. 

I wanted to share my eulogy with you to have you know her the way I did.  

I met Jessie in the spring of 2008 at the NRA Annual meeting in Louisville, Kentucky. This sweet, shy, quiet (little did I know) young lady had my heart from the beginning. Always ready with a smile and a funny story she could turn almost any situation into one filled with laughter.

After we began working together I quickly learned that Jessie was neither shy nor quiet and, aside from saying things like Sir, Ma’am, y’all and “Bless her heart” she blew just about every stereotype of a southern girl out of the water. Being from NH I had mistakenly believed that all southern girls were born knowing how to two-step and spent their Saturday nights in bars listening to country music and learning to line dance. 

That was not the case with Jessie…At all. She was a free spirit who was moved by the things that she loved which could include anything from competitive shooting to knitting and if she could combine the two while listening to Ludacris she would! 

Jessie had a wicked sense of humor that ranged from silly to completely sarcastic and had the ability to make me laugh to the point that I’d have tears streaming down my face and my stomach muscles would hurt for days. She was a fierce competitor who gave it her all whether she was competing with a rifle or in the annual Spoons Tournament at the NRA. 

Jess was just amazing! She truly never met a stranger. Her love of others transcended age, race, religion, marital status and politics. She never let her personal opinions get in the way of being a friend. No matter what, she saw the good in people and there was no gap too wide to bridge. 

She had a deep and abiding love of Christ. Jessie was a living example of unconditional love and was always available to help others regardless of their need. Her devotion helped lead me back to church. She never said, “You should go.” Or “you’re going to rot in hell.” She simply lived her life in a way that made me want to emulate her love of others, as Christ loves us. 

So what is this love? Merriam-Webster defines love as: 

·     a feeling of strong or constant affection for a person


·     attraction that includes sexual desire : the strong affection felt by people who have a romantic relationship
 a person you love in a romantic way 

How’s that for not even coming close?! 

When thinking about Jess, the impact she had on me and on those around her the one passage that keeps coming to mind was First Corinthians, Chapter 13: 4-8 The gift of love. 4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. 

My father’s side of the family is Quaker. In a Quaker funeral everyone sits in silent prayer and then, if they feel moved to do so, can stand and talk about the deceased. At my grandmother’s funeral back in the 90s some people read bible verses and others shared stories. 

As the service neared the end a gentleman, that no one recognized stood up, introduced himself and said that he’d been having breakfast with my grandmother every Sunday after church for the past three years. He went on to say that he was sorry that he’d only known my grandmother for three years but after listening to everyone that day he felt blessed to have known her for three years. 

This is how I feel about my friendship with Jessie. I’d only known Jessie for 8 years but am blessed to have known her for that long. I am very proud to call her friend but I do not believe that our friendship happened by chance. CS Lewis summed up friendship the best in The Four Loves:  “In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another...the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting--any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends, "Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.” 

Jessie’s beauty was Love. 

To know Jessie was simply to know love.  

His Passion

Four years ago this morning I kissed my father goodbye for the last time.

He had been diagnosed with bladder cancer in September and took his final breath on December 3, 2010.

The world has not been the same since.

We all know that our parents are supposed to die before us. In fact, anytime someone loses a child the saying is, "You're not supposed to bury your children." It's a natural order of things to let the parents go first.

That being said, it doesn't make the loss any easier.

Dad was one of the healthiest guys I've ever known. He quit smoking in the '70s, rarely drank to excess, ate well and was not the least bit overweight. What he did suffer from was a genetic predisposition to cancer. Men in our family all get prostate cancer. Dad did but beat it with radioactive seeding. According to the oncologist, it probably wasn't even necessary but dad said that he didn't like living each day with the knowledge that he had cancer in him.

In the end it didn't matter.

Some people just draw a short straw the day they were conceived.  You can't argue with DNA.

After his biopsy confirmed the bladder cancer in September. He was scheduled for surgery in October to have his bladder removed and was trained on how to empty the "bag" that he would be wearing for the rest of his life.

Surgery came and went...the doctor opened him and closed him back up.

In the couple of weeks from the biopsy to surgery, the cancer had grown at lightning speed, breeching the bladder walls and taking over the lower part of his abdomen. There was nothing more that could be done.

He opted for palliative radiation in hopes that it would buy him a little more time but even that wouldn't do much to extend his life or the quality of what he had left.

The family and our friends rallied. We did everything we could to make what time he had left as good as it could be. From coordinating volunteer drivers to radiation and taking dad for his last sail.

Dad, who was a Quaker, turned to his friends and our pastor for spiritual guidance. His belief in God was deep but something he didn't force on others. Over the years we'd had some great conversations about God and spirituality and prior to passing he confided in me that he was concerned about the afterlife as he, "hadn't always been nice to people."

That was the most amazing thing about him.

Even as he lay in bed slowly surrendering to the cancer, his concern was not just about himself but about anyone he might have wronged.

I told him that I highly doubted that if God was willing to forgive those who had done something as heinous as murder, that He would be more than willing to forgive a man who would have yelled at someone because his passion ran high!

Dad was a passionate guy.

If he really believed in something you'd be best to just get out of his way or better yet give him a hand because he's going to draft you to help him anyway. He was instrumental in rescuing a yacht club from near bankruptcy. By the time he stepped down as Commodore the club was in the black, had expanded to put in an in-ground pool, started a sailing school and was holding regular regattas. Mom worked at his side and the club became the family annex. If you came to visit you could pretty much count on working.

Dad's passion easily translated to enthusiasm and you couldn't help but get involved. If you didn't believe in what he was doing he'd be the first to point out that you were wrong and he was known for having a temper and voice to go with it.

One of our friends loved the fact that he could get into a very spirited debate with my dad and when it was over, belly up to the bar and have a beer together. He was not a grudge holder.

He had a great sense of humor but a horrible memory. I could tell him the same joke every year and he'd laugh as if it were the first time he'd heard it.

I loved his laugh.

While he could be a really serious guy at times, he didn't take himself seriously.

Over the years we'd teased him about looking like Inspector Clouseau from the Pink Panther movies and referring to him as Chuckles. One Thanksgiving his sisters teased about attempting a comb-over because he hadn't had time to get his hair cut before the holidays.

He took all of it in stride and would even laugh with us (but did get his hair cut the next day.)

I think that's the thing I miss most...his laugh.

While my boys can look at his picture and know who he is, they will never know his laugh. He would have loved to play with them and I would have loved to have heard him laugh at their antics.

There is not a day that goes by that I do not miss him and I'm not alone. His impact on those around him was astounding! Which is both a blessing and a curse.

While we were all enriched by his presence but we all suffered when he passed. Fortunately, we were left with lots of great memories and stories to share.

While he is no longer here to laugh with us, I take solace in the fact that to this day I can still hear his laughter which makes me smile and warms my heart.

Powerless

Seems that this is the week for loss.

I recently posted about a former friend's father passing and now we have lost one of the greatest funny men and actors of all time: Robin Williams.

I remember when he took the world by storm on Mork & Mindy. Being a child of the 80s, I also remember watching countless comedy specials with him in them and even bought one of his albums!

I sat in the theater at the end of Dead Poets' Society with tears streaming down my face completely numbed and awed that the man who had made me laugh could act so brilliantly that he could also make me cry while simultaneously wanting to run out and take the world by storm.

Carpe Diem!

I too try to seize the day but it's not always possible because I too have depression.

I have battled it for years.

Most of the time I win but there are times that all I want to do is go to sleep and never wake up.

People who do not have or who have never been exposed to depression think that it's something you can control with sheer will.

They are wrong.

There are many types and severities of depression but few if any can be dealt with by physical exercise, a clean house, change of attitude or any other suggestion from someone who means well but is clueless.

This may come as a surprise to some, but I have been on antidepressants since May of 1999.

I originally began taking them as a means to help quit smoking. Once done, I stopped taking them, and sank into a depression that rendered me nearly helpless.

I began to cry...and couldn't stop.

My (then) husband got me to the doctor and I started on the antidepressants in earnest.

The only time I've been off them was while I was going through IVF to get pregnant. Which by the way made a miserable pregnancy even worse.

I know that I need them. I know that I'm better with them. I know that having to take them has nothing to do with who I am morally.

So why do I still hiccup when the topic comes up?

Because not everyone does.

People still think you can work off depression.

The only way that works is if you are unemployed and depressed as a result. If you get a job, yes you will feel better but that's situational depression and not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the chemical kind.

People still think that depression is "all in your head."

Well yes, but it's a synapse thing and nothing like what they think it is.

When the demon roars it's head I can feel the weight and gloom envelope me like a nasty, wet, woolen blanket that I can do nothing to keep from coming into contact with.

I am powerless to stop it.

It will bear down and stay until it dries out and I can push it off.

I am not weak and I don't do pity parties.

Depression has nothing to do with strength and "positive thinking."

Most days are very manageable. But then there are others...

My father passed away in December of 2010. In January, despite taking my daily dose of antidepressant, I had slipped into a depression where I started to cry and couldn't stop. It was lunchtime and I was behind the wheel of the car.

No knowing what else to do I started driving toward my doctor's office.

They were closed for lunch so I called a friend who stayed on the phone with me until the office opened.

Once I was able to get through to my doctor's office she got on the phone with me and stayed there until I walked into the office building.

There was nothing that day that triggered it. There was nothing I could have done to stop it. All I knew was that my doctor could help and my friend fights the beast too and would understand my panic.

I'd been down this road before.

I was terrified.

There is much talk about depression now that Robin Williams has committed suicide and I hope and pray that the conversation will last more than the standard 72 hours that most people seem to think is appropriate.

If we believe social media Robin is now "free" and "at peace." I'm not really sure about that.

Social media and religion also lead us to believe that our loved ones who have passed are "watching over us" and "always with us."

If that is the case and Robin is indeed "watching over" his family, I have no doubt that he is not at peace as he watches his family endure their pain as a result of his taking his own life.

There is no peace for anyone.

Suicide begets suicide.

Those who are "thinking about it" or that "have a plan" can easily be swayed to exercise that plan if they believe that their answers lie in their own death.

I ask that everyone be careful to not romanticize death or to act as if it's the answer.

It's not.

Be responsible and be proactive.

Don't wait for your friends or loved ones to call you. They won't.

Call them. Make sure they know you love them. That they are important to you. That they matter.

We'd all rather hear those things while we are alive than have it said as a eulogy.

Loss

I recently learned that a former friend has lost his father, a man that I also knew and remember with great fondness.

I know that everyone eventually dies and yet that knowledge does little, if anything, to quell the sadness that has washed over me.

The loss for the family is great as he was a really great guy.

Anytime I hear of someone losing their father the pain returns. I can fully empathize with that person's loss as I have "been there, done that."

In fact, there is not a day that goes by that I don't miss my dad.

Yes, I know that he "is with me all the time," blah, blah, blah...

Nice thought but it's just not the same as hearing him laugh.

I miss him.

I really, really miss him.

Some days the pain is nearly crippling. Other days it's just a dull throb but the pain always seems to be there always rearing up when something triggers it.

Today it was the loss of a former US F-Class Rifle Team member. We shot together in South Africa in 2005. We shot together on teams in Canada. We were teammates, competitors and friends.

He made me laugh.

His loss takes just a little bit of laughter out of my life.

May he rest in peace and may his family find comfort in the thought that his passing through the heavenly gates has restored him to health.

Flat Surface Disease

I am referring to last week as the Week of Death.

No, really...In addition to being the anniversary of my father's passing we had a friend lose his father, another friend lose her husband and a client of mine lost his wife.

The week was bookended with funerals and had a wake in the middle. It was terrible. Not as bad for me as it was for the families but just such an unhappy week all the way around.

As if the "week of death" wasn't enough to contend with, our little stuntman botched a backward dismount off the sofa and split his head open on the foot of the coffee table!

We're making him practice that dismount until he can stick it!

Ugh!

And as if taking your one year old son to the ER for stitches isn't stressful enough, I called my mom and ended up hearing, "It's not to late to put those bumper things on the coffee table."

Yeah, um...thanks!

Here's the kicker...He hit the foot of the coffee table, not the top. No one, not a single well-meaning, over-protective friend or family member has been concerned about the feet on anything...until now.

Even so, we couldn't put those bumpers on them, the kids would peel them off in about five minutes or we'd be yelling "Aah, aah, aah!" at them to leave them alone.

C'mon!

I already say "NO" enough. I just don't need to add a temptation for them or anymore stress for me!

As soon as the kids began crawling we bought a used center armoire entertainment unit so the kids couldn't play with the electronics. It works great until we open the doors to watch TV!

They are like moths to a flame!

They can be across the house and the moment the doors are open they come as fast as they can. We now have the doors open all the time and an indoor fence around the entertainment center to keep them away from it. This is the fence I was going to use to put around the Christmas tree.

Thank God for friends with slightly older children!

We borrowed another indoor fence and now have the tree enclosed in it.

The stuntman hasn't been interested in the tree since the day it went up - wait until he figures out that trees can be climbed! The engineer likes to pet the branches. We purposely hung the unbreakable stuff where they could reach it in case they tried. They haven't gone for the ornaments just like to touch the actual branches.

We cut down our own tree this year. It was a pretty Norman Rockwell-esque experience with the boys in the double-wide stroller walking thru the tree farm until we found just the right one! Hubby hit his knees and cut it down while I ran around snapping pictures from every direction. I had hubby stand next to the stroller with the tree while I took pictures and the children looked at him like, "Why the heck is dad holding that big green thing?!" (They don't really know what trees are yet.)

It was all fun and games until it was time to head back and pay for the tree...hubby had to drag the thing all the way back. It was quite a distance. Of course, the tree we found was about as far from the car as we could get...hubby is very picky when it comes to the Christmas tree.

We really do have a beautiful tree - minus the fence of course.

Neither one of us is a "ball" person.

What I mean by this is that we don't use ball ornaments to decorate the tree. We have themes for our ornaments: fishing and sailing (hubby), cows and angels (me) and baby's first Christmas - from last year. At roughly six weeks old they had no idea that there was anything more than feeding and sleep  but we have the ornaments to prove it!

Hubby usually leaves decorating the tree up to me - he's picky about the tree, I'm picky about the lights and ornaments. This year that was not the case. As with many tasks these days, we knocked it out in two hours because the boys were napping. There just wasn't time to be picky!

What one can accomplish in that two-hour timeframe is nothing short of amazing.

This was the case on Thanksgiving.

While I cooked hubby cleaned the entire house, including bathrooms, in two hours!

Although we have our usual chores hubby does trash, car washing, lawn mowing, guys things etc. and I do most household things like laundry and cooking, the cleaning usually falls into the "whoever has the time" category.

I am not OCD about the way things are cleaned. I just care that they are clean. I don't keep a spotless household - my kids have great immune systems - but it's neat and somewhat tidy.

I used to get all freaked out by the idea of my parents coming to visit and would spend days and days cleaning. I don't know why. Growing up we had a magnet on the refrigerator that said, "Dust: The protective covering of fine furniture!"

Needless to say, my mom is not a neat freak. Things are clean but she suffers from "Flat Surface Disease" and an unfortunate affinity for catalogs.

If there is a flat surface in her house, you will find a pile of catalogs, some of which are years old.

It seems I inherited the FSD gene and have to stay ever vigilant to keep things from piling up. The worst part is that the hubby has FSD too. Right now treatment comes in the form of the "office." We try to keep the piles contained and once a quarter I go in and file everything that needs to be and discard the rest.

In the meantime, we keep the door closed.

We call it the "office" because it has office furniture and the printers in it but it's really become the catch-all for things we're not sure what to do with but know that they don't go in the basement - a name that is really too long so "office" it is.

Sometimes, I wish that my parents had been a little more strict when it came to keeping a tidier house but then I think that in the end it really doesn't matter. No one really cares unless it's really disgusting to the point of being life-threatening and I know that having my parents at sporting events and concerts was much more important than whether or not the dining room had been dusted!

His Legacy

Three years ago this morning I sat with my hand on my father's shoulder as he took his last raspy breath of life. My mother said it was fitting that I was the last one with him as he was the first one to touch me when I came into this word.

My dad was my buddy and not a day goes by that I don't miss him.

We talked about everything and he was the first person that I would call for anything but especially when had a new joke. Sometimes I would tell him the same ones just because his memory for jokes really sucked! He would laugh the same each time.

I miss his laugh.

He had a great sense of humor and was as quick with a laugh as he was with his temper.

Man, did dad have a temper.

He mellowed in his older years but he was fierce when we were younger.

He could yell louder than any other human on the face of the earth and could get whatever attention was needed, when it was needed. Sometimes you didn't want the attention but when you pissed him off you knew it and sometimes, unfortunately, the entire neighborhood knew it too!

We were raised during the "corporal punishment is ok years." Although we are not an enormously religious family "spare the rod, spoil the child" was certainly a philosophy that was practiced in our house. Dad used to use his fraternity paddle to spank us.

As if being hit with a piece of wood wasn't bad enough, the guilty party would be dispatched to retrieve the "the paddle," an act, I always felt, was akin to sharpening the blade on the guillotine before your own execution!

One morning my brother and I were rough-housing and we broke something - I don't remember exactly what it was - but I was sent to get "the paddle." I crocodile-teared all the way up the stairs into my room where I pulled on every pair of underpants and shorts I owned under my nightgown before proceeding to my dad's closet the get "the paddle" and return downstairs.

When dad hit me it sounded (and felt) like he hit a pillow!

I could cry at the drop of a hat - a skill I developed solely to get my brother in trouble - so I let the tears flow freely while desperately trying not to smile because it didn't hurt AT ALL!!!

I really thought I was "one up" and that the old man was a dunce.

I was 19 before he told me that he knew what I had done but didn't want to say anything! He told me that I was the only one of us three kids that had the guts to even try to get away with such a thing and he wasn't going to take that away from me!

He was a strict disciplinarian but he was also a dedicated husband and father who did whatever it took to provide for his family and be involved in our lives. He was a soccer coach, hockey coach and timer at the swim meets. He knew nothing of soccer and hockey but read every book he could find on the topic to be a good coach - he was that dedicated.

He was at every game we played and every meet we competed in and he had a whistle you could hear over the rest of the crowd and through a bathing cap in the water.

Looking back at my childhood I remember him always being there; didn't matter if it was a school concert or a swim meet my parents were always there.

One of my favorite memories of my elementary years is the Annual Girl Scout Father Daughter Square Dance. I looked forward to that event every year. Dad was my date! We'd get all dressed up and spend the night following the calls to "do-si-do" and "swing your partner." It was heaven! Being on his arm made me feel like the most beautiful girl in the world!

Oh to have that feeling today.

In the past three years, I have had moments where memories come flooding back to me. There are so many things that we did with my dad. When we were very young, summers revolved around swimming lessons at the lake and vacations in Maryland at my grandparent's farm. As we got older, we sailed.

Dad was a sailor at heart.

He loved to be on the water and loved sailing but what he loved the most, was racing. So much so that he founded the Sailing Team at his alma mater Colgate University.

When he wasn't sailing he was fixing. He had an amazing skill with wood and there was always a boat in some stage of repair in our garage.

At some point fixing turned into building.

I don't remember the details but, somehow a guy in Michigan got a hold of my dad, sent him some blueprints for a boat he had designed and next thing I know dad was building the thing.

Now this would be an amazing feat for just about anyone, never mind the guy who had a full-time job, three young kids with crazy sports schedules and a wife at home.

He built a 24' wood and epoxy boat in the garage from blueprints!

I remember watching him pace out the garage to see if it would fit and watched him literally jump with excitement when he realized that it would.

In order to build this thing, it had to be constructed upside down. Once the hull was ready it had to be flipped over so he could build the deck. I can still see the scene in my mind today of all of the mattresses in the driveway and a huge number of people helping to roll this thing over. There might have been a keg involved but I'm not sure.

Our friends and neighbors must have thought we were insane.

In the middle of construction dad was transferred from north Jersey to south Jersey. In addition to moving us and the contents of the house, we had to move the boat! Next thing I know dad was modifying a trailer to tow this thing south.

I know that for a while he rented space in some sort of business complex but eventually moved the boat to my grandmother's carriage house. Once it was finished he launched the boat in Island Heights, NJ and christened it GARDYLOO.

The '80s were spent on the water in Island Heights, New Jersey. Some of my greatest memories are from those summers. He wasn't just my dad, he took on a fatherly role with everyone younger than he was. He didn't do this consciously, it was his nature. He was wise if you were willing to listen - I was a teenager in the '80s so I often argued more than I listened - but he was always willing to offer some tidbit of wisdom.

A few weeks before he passed away he told me that one thing he would really like to do was to go sailing again. I knew that I had to find a way to make this wish come true.

I called a friend and found out that his brother's boat was still in the water and that they'd be more than happy to make this happen. Before I knew it we had assembled the old crew from Island Heights, including one of the guys that was now a surgeon living in Florida, and headed for a sail.

Unfortunately a key crew member was unable to make it: my brother was stuck at a conference in California and couldn't get back. We arranged for my dad to talk to him on the phone while we were sailing. It certainly wasn't the same but at least they got to talk. We also had two additions to the crew that day. My husband, my dad introduced the two of us, and his oldest grandson who my dad had also taught to sail and was dad's right arm at the Sailing School.

The fact that we were able to assemble everyone on such short notice was nothing shy of a miracle but the day itself was truly touched by God.

It was mid November in Maryland and it was nearly 70 degrees. The sun was shining and there was a light wind blowing. An hour north in Philadelphia that same day and same time, there was sleet and snow!

It took some maneuvering but we finally managed to get dad loaded onto the boat and headed out from the dock. When it was time to set the sails each of the crew members jumped to action as if no time at all had passed since we last crewed together despite the fact that it had been more than 20 years!

It was magical.

Dad was settled in the cockpit and we took turns sitting next to him to keep him from falling over each time we were on starboard tack. We also took turns imitating him and spouting his Chuck-isms. He no longer had the strength or desire to yell at us but he certainly got a kick out of our impersonations.

We sailed for a little more than an hour before dad said that he was tired.

It was time to turn around.

The return trip might have been sunny, but my mood was beginning to cloud over. I stayed by my dad's side as much as possible as I knew that this would be the last time I would sail with him and I didn't want it to end.

In the years since my dad has passed I do not look at, or think about, a sailboat without missing him.

All I have to do is be near the water with wind in my hair and my dad comes to life.

He loved sailing so much that when he retired he joined a yacht club and started the Rock Hall Yacht Club Sailing School that thrives today. Two of his grandchildren as well as a few of the kids from his inaugural class have become sailing instructors.

His legacy lives on. The children who were once students, will one day teach our boys.

We just celebrated the twins' first birthday. I have thought of my dad countless times this past year and am saddened by the fact that they will never know him. They will however, learn to sail and when the wind blows through their hair and the sun kisses their cheeks, they will feel his touch and know his love.