To my sister-in-law, niece and nephew (given to them 4/30).
I have been telling people what a gift being able to say good-bye is. And that I have no regrets. I was able to do and say everything I wanted to before he passed.
I think about him every day and focus on the moments in the last couple days that bring me peace. One morning few days ago it struck me. I do have one regret. I did not thank him for giving me, all of us, the gift of saying good-bye. That morning when someone asked if anyone wanted to say something, I should have thanked him for letting us love him the way we needed to, which included being there when he left us.
Since I cannot thank him, I am thanking you.
Thank you.
Thank you for sharing your last few precious weeks with him. Being able to visit, help where I could, just sit with him was such a gift. I know how lucky we were to be able to look him in the eye and say good-bye. You let us share that with you and you did not have to. A lot of people have told me not all families could have done what we did together. Of course we would have preferred for the disease to not exist and for him to be with us for many more years. But since we could not wish the disease away, being able to say good-bye healed as much as it hurt to say it.
Maybe there were times when you wished we would all go away and leave you alone. But you never let it show. And hopefully we were able to give you enough time to be alone with him, to be just the three of you (and baby Kai, woof).
I love you all so much.
