ATTENTION: Linda <[email protected] Hi Linda, My dad is 83. More than 5 years ago he was diagnosed with "conjestive heart failure." Life expentancy once diagnosed is 5 years. My parents will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary in August. My only hope is that he will live see that and a lot more. Even when we are given a warning like this the actual death is always a shock. One comes to value the memories, the little things like a piece of his handwriting or a favourite tie. We tend to cling to them like a child clings to a mother's skirt. Although we grow to adults and go on with our lives, we are still that young child inside wanting to see Daddy one more time. No one can say or do anything that will ease the pain at the time of loss except give you support. Be assured as time goes by you will come to accept his loss as time distances you from the date. Every once in a while you will be reminded of him and shed a tear but even those occasions will be further apart as time passes. You will come to cherish the memories and try to find a way to recreate his life's achievements to pass on to those who follow who you also love dearly. Now is a good time to sit and reflect on his memory, write down everything you can remember and put it away for future generations. Through this act, you will get to know him as a complete person and come to realize that he will only live on if you give his life a meaning. For the past thirty years I have been writing things I remember about my dad, even though he is still alive. By the time I go, there will be more than just a name on a family tree. My father never knew his grandfather who died in England when he was 5 just like I never knew mine, all of whom were dead by the time I was 5. Even so, I probably know them better now than anyone in the family, my parents included, because I have searched for every possible record to recreate their lives as people. You need to grieve at this point and writing out his life will help you do that. Once you have finished his story, you will have his memories on paper to reflect upon in times of need and you will be able to lock him away in that special room in your brain reserved especially for him so that you can open the door at will whenever you need a happy memory from the past. He has gone to happier place as we would all like to believe. Right now I am writing a book I call "On Rollins Pond." It is a novel based on true history and on an experience of mine as a teenager camping at the pond. Each chapter is the life or lives of individuals fitted into history right back to the 1700s. When each person dies there tends to be a connection to the pond where it is believed their souls go to be united with friends until it becomes their turn to enter the cathedral that starts their trip to greater beyond. The stories are based on my own experience of hearing voices in the evening from across the lake. I suspect they were voices from nearby campsites that travelled across the water and bounced back from the hills on the other side of the lake but I am not sure. I prefer to think of them as the voices of lost souls waiting for their call to go to the great beyond. The first chapter of the book is the history of my own parents' lives during WWII. My father spent 4-1/2 years in the war zone in the Canadian Army, RAF, and the RCAF and participated in the thousand plane night raids over Germany. My mother was a officer in the WAAF and survive a direct bomb his while she was plotting the Battle of Britain at Biggin Hill, south of London. Somewhere, in each chapter of my book, I include the same two lines," ...each summer, in the evenings, when the sun goes down and the breeze is blowing at just the right pitch and you listen carefully, you can hear them, as the breeze carries their far-off cries across the lake." These are the sounds of lost souls looking for the other souls who had departed long before them. Everyone who visits the lake in my story, feel a calmness sitting by the lake and reflecting on those who they miss. As I further wrote, "Perhaps those who felt a calling to Rollins Pond were being summoned by someone they knew, someone who needed them to be there to make good their passage to the "beyond." When billowing clouds loomed overhead and rays of bright sunshine worked their way through the spaces of open blue sky, it was as if they marked an entry point into that middle world showing these new lost souls their way to the world beyond. Or, is it only in my imagination like it was in the imaginations of others who told similar stories in the many generations before mine? In my mind I could see the clouds opened and the sun's rays burst through. There appeared to be a choir of angels waiting there. A thousand heads turned to the sky, singing at the top of their lungs, beckoning the souls of the recently departed to join them in the glorious cathedral above from where they would be chosen to begin their trip into the next world when the time was right." I like to think that my idea of Rollins Pond really exists because I know that whenever I did go camping there with the family as a youngster, it made for happy times. Here's hoping that you too have that special place where you can go to be alone with the fond memories of your father, may he rest in peace. Love for a parent is a never ending thing that is passed on through several generations. Eventually the feeling of loss gently disappears as time moves on. A child loves a parent like a grandchild loves a grandparent. It is all very much the same. Although the connection to future generations is distanced by time, that love connection exists in the kind of love the parents of those generations pass on to their kids.Now is the time to make good those connections with people who are still with us. It all helps with the grieving process. My condolences go out to you at this time as we on the List are another of your families and although we do not know you except through the Internet, we understand what you are going through, having gone through it ourselves from time to time. May each coming day be just a little bit brighter! Bob in Toronto ----- Original Message ----- From: Linda <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 10:10 PM Subject: [SCTCDN] McKinnon McKinley McInnis..... > hi list > Looking for the above names in Northumberland and Kent Counties New > Brunswick..... > Thanks David for your pep talk.......my Dad just died last > week.......and all else seems so trivial now.....and kindness and > tolerance should always be extended on any list...if a message bothers > you, there is a handy delete button on every computer....... > Linda > > > ==== SCOTS-IN-CANADA Mailing List ==== > To unsubscribe: [email protected] inserting the word unsubscribe in both the subject line and the text area and using a fresh email to do it. Use -D- if you are in Digest mode. > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 >