On Sunday, March 15, 2009, at 1:15 in the wee hours of the morning, the Lord called my daddy home. He went peacefully with John and Jay my two youngest brothers by his side. The last two and a half weeks have seemed like a blur, and still do, however, I will never, ever forget the precious moments we got to spend with my daddy when we finally moved him to hospice. I will share those moments later on when I'm not so tired, but just wanted to say how overwhelmed our family has been by the outpouring of love from our friends and family, and also the community in which my daddy served selflessly. So many people that I had never seen came up to me at the visitation and told me stories of my daddy's unselfish acts of kindness to them. I always knew when he would get up in the middle of night to go to the drugstore to get medicine for someone, and not only that, he would deliver it to their house so they wouldn't have to get out with a sick child. But I never realized the impact that simple act of kindness would have on so many people this many years later. He would have still been doing that up to the moment he died, if it had not been for my mother's illness which required him to retire at an "early" age of 72, to look after her. His sacrificial, unconditional love for my mama is the perfect picture of Christ's love for His church. When I think of my earthly daddy, it isn't hard to picture what my Heavenly Daddy's (Abba, Father) character is like. It is a neverending, unconditional love that is faithful to the end. I thank my Father in heaven for my sweet, sweet earthly father he blessed me with for 55 years. Oh how I will miss him, but the memories we have of him will live on forever.
