Remembering With Smiles and Joy

There were times you made me crazy and times I wanted to throttle you. You were a son, after all.

But those times can perhaps be compared to the pains of child birth, you remember they occurred but over time they recede and blur.
And over time, that which is joyous burbles to memory's surface and there remains.

Memories are personal things and private.
Some are to be shared, some to be kept near the heart. All to be treasured.

Remembered and shared this day:

• my delight in hearing your first sermon on the 23rd Psalm and this before you became 'family'
• the seriousness with which you proclaimed your marriage vows
• the awe with which you held your first born
• our quiet conversation in the snow under an Alaskan sky waiting for an Aurora Borealis light show (the show never came but the conversation is etched on the heart)
• the silly times when your quirky humor came out
• the time you brought down the house with your Belle of Belfast

We remember you this day with grateful hearts.

We think of you every day.

We miss you but we would not call you back from the unspeakable joys you now enjoy.

We do not grieve for you but for our loss of you and we grieve for ourselves being left behind.

Dale Alan Valovich

1956-2008