Me: Hey God. God: Hey You. Me: Grief keeps sneaking up on me. God: That's because grief is like a ninja. Me: When will it leave me alone? God: Hopefully never. Me: What?! God: To grieve means that you have loved. Grieving is one of the truest human experiences that you will ever participate in. It often arrives without warning - like a late day summer storm - obscuring the sun and drenching you in a downpour. It's a gift, isn't it? Me: Uh, no. God: Grab a pen and write the following four things down: 1) Grief can come and go as it pleases. You gave it a key to your house at the exact moment you gave your heart to somebody else. 2) Bereavement is the debt you must pay for having loved. There is no getting over the loss of a beloved who is now resting in the arms of endless love. Grief has no expiration date. Despite the passing of time, the phantom pain of mourning is always one memory away from returning. 3) Of all the emotions you face, grief is the by-far stickiest. It gets all over everything. Like peanut butter, grief sticks to the roof of you soul. 4) grief Is like an afternoon thunderstorm in late summer. It's the storm that's always waiting on the edges of your most sunny days to roll across the horizon and right over you. The ghosts of your loved ones who have died are the clouds. The webbed lightning Illuminating the dark canvas sky is their reminder to you that life is just a a brilliant temporary flash of time. It’s the reminder to live now. to be bold. to be electric. The pounding rain isn't your tears. It's the hope of eternal life that falls on you. It's that downpour of hope that will help you grow deep roots in love and faith. The gale winds of these storms are the messages from those you have lost to death that are whispering to you through the pines the following psalm: "It's okay, my love. Eternity is holding me. Death isn't an end. Death is a threshold. I'm still here. I never left. Love doesn’t die. Love doesn’t die. I remain. There is no afterlife. There is only life. I’m here with you. Love doesn’t die." Me: Okay...great...now I'm crying. God: I'm proud of your tears of grief. Me: You are? God: Yes- because it’s proof that you have loved. Me: Well, I’ve got all sorts of proof pouring down my face right now... God: It’s all such an adventure!! (From “Upon Departure”) ~ john roedel

Thank you for setting up this memorial to Doreen. We hope that you find it a positive experience developing the site and that it becomes a place of comfort and inspiration for you to visit whenever you want or need to.

I am I and you are you, whatever we were to each other that we still are. Speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? Life means all that it ever meant, it is the same as it ever was.