Seven

Another year has come and gone. If you know me or my family, or if you read my blog post from last year on this date, you know what I am talking about. On August 15, 2000 my father died very suddenly of a heart attack. Seven years. SEVEN! Just under a quarter of my life spent with out my dad. Unfortunately that percentage will continue to climb.

Death stinks.

Just last week Thursday I attended the memorial service here in Escondido for Dr. den Dulk. Memories flooded back. Dr. den Dulk was a very close friend of my father and he kept in contact with us over the past seven years. Being in the EURC sanctuary almost seven years to the day from when the funeral service for my father took place was hard to say the least. It was especially hard when people I knew approached me and talked about my father (which I loved to hear). But at one point I had to go into another room and physically weep after somebody told me they still kept a photo of my father in their personal files. Even after seven years, all the thoughts, all the memories, all pain, all the grief are still right there.

Death stinks.

The memorial service for Dr. den Dulk was very nice mostly because Dr. den Dulk planned it. He picked out the songs, he picked out the passages to be meditated on, he chose who was going to speak. We had to do all of that on our own in two days, in not the best state of mind. I think we did a good job considering and we had guidance from Dr. Godfrey, Rev. Cammenga, and others which was invaluable.

There is so much more I could say, but a lot of it I did last year. Here is the link to that post.

Someday soon I am going to try and post the audio from my father's memorial service on-line so that you can hear it. I have to convert it from Audio Tape (it was aaaallllll the way back in 2000 after all) into digital. All the guys did a great job considering how much pain they were feeling as well, but Rev. Cammenga's message was really good.

That is all. Make sure you say "I Love You" to your parents!