Ashley, thank you. 🙂 It was an act of love – how could you not love someone so special?

Nice words, Joseph. Thank you. 🙂 I've always felt a little twinge of discomfort when anyone gives me a compliment. But I guess that would be fodder for a therapist, eh? :))

Jake, you're right. And maybe some of that guilt stems from the emotional upheaval. He and I never resolved anything face-to-face, so there will always be questions. In my mind, I wanted to resolve it in his mind at least.

Super analogy, Cathy. That helps a lot. Thank you. 🙂

Paula, they ARE a special family. I was a little surprised by all the attention I was getting. Why me? Geez. But I may have been the diversion they needed to escape that grief for a minute. And my traveling that far, I hope, showed them just how special he was to other people.

The really special people in life are in our hearts forever, Time makes no difference. What a special gift they are to you, Lori.

Welcome back and virtual hugs.

And what a great family – thoughtful, warm and nurturing even in their grief. Seeing someone special from his past had to underscore how many lives he touched. It's good that you went.

I like hearing your friend call rain on a funeral day being a sign the loved one has made it to Heaven. As a kid I remember waking up on the day of my mom's funeral (well, not that I'd actually slept) thinking, "It's raining – maybe they'll cancel the funeral and it won't be real." Then Dad or Grandma explained there weren't rain delays for funerals. I clearly remember thinking of the rain as angels' tears. Since then I've always paid attention to rain and snow on funeral days, and it's oddly comforting that most of the time there has been rain or snow at some point on the funeral days. Even ornery Great Uncle Harold got a "spit" or two of rain.

I absolutely understand what you're getting at. All I'm saying is that your lovely and heartfelt gesture isn't diminished in the slightest by the fact that it's in an area in which you're skilled, or by a small-talk comment that (ahem) you may be examining more closely than it should be. 🙂

Anyway, glad you're back to the page and life.

Resisting doing what you think is too easy to have any worth, and resisting accepting or believing honest praise for your words – because "it's not a struggle for me to say these things" – are the same sides of two similar coins. It's your gift, Lori, accept that what you do can and will affect others, whether an eyebrow raise or bring them to tears. We don't work for free, remember?. That's the payoff.

Thinking of you.

See, I feel he was chosen to help ME in some way. I haven't quite nailed down what that was yet, but I'm getting closer to it. Maybe he's the one who taught me unconditional love beyond family borders.

I've seen people who can't even write a grocery list, create a tear-jerking poem in similar situations.

Everyone has different spiritual beliefs. To me, I feel you were chosen to be the one to help him and those close to him to heal. In this situation, it happened to be with words.