We Grieve Two Men

 First I want to thank all of you who have been on this journey with us——the prayers, the cards, the meals, the visits, the assistance for Dave at home and at appointments.  We could’t have done it all without you.  Thank you.

We Grieve Two Men

Rachel said we celebrated in 2001 for what Dave could do. . . .we never allowed ourselves to grieve the man he had been.

We grieve the man who fell off the roof 24 years ago with a life threatening Traumatic Brain Injury.

And we grieve the man who emerged from 6 weeks in the ICU broken but strong and fighting.

We  grieve the engineer who flew around the world meeting with other scientists researching fusion energy

And we grieve the man who went back to work 9 months after his accident and worked for 5 more years at his desk.

We grieve the athletic man who jogged every day, worked out at the Y, played golf, traversed the KATY trail.

And we grieve the man who struggled for 24 years with Physical therapy and trainers at Wellbridge..

We grieve the man who would help others move, trim a tree, drive middle school kids to Branson for a church trip.

And we grieve the man who reluctantly but  graciously  accepted help from others.

We grieve the man who was Chief Silver Cloud  taking 3 Indian Princesses on weekend campouts.

And We grieve the man who drove hundreds of miles so grandchildren could crawl on his lap for him to read to them.

We grieve the man who sang tenor in the church choir, and chaired  the Worship Committee.

And we grieve the man who spoke hesitantly with a speech impediment at Small Group.

We grieve the man who drove up one day surprising us with a license plate saying 3DOTRS 

And we grieve the man who drove a van with a lift for his wheel chair.

We grieve the man who stood proudly holding his head up, back straight

And we grieve the man who was bent over a walker or slumped in a wheel chair, still proud but weaker

We grieve the man who took us to Disney World gritting his teeth but smiling through It’s a Small World

And we grieve the man who took us on Disney cruises dressed as a pirate in a wheel chair.

We remember, we grieve, we celebrate.

We celebrated that he was still the same handsome, kind, caring, strong man who laughed at our shenanigans. He still loved watching the Cardinals, Chiefs and Missouri Tigers.  He walked more slowly, spoke with difficulty and never showed his physical and emotional pain—-worrying until the end about leaving us. And when he saw that our daughters and grandchildren stepped up to help me with my knee surgery, he knew he could “go  home”

We were the fortunate ones to have had two great men in one body.