“True is the grief
you carry without witnesses.”

Marcus Martialis, c. A.D. 100
Latin poet

“Even on the road to hell,
 flowers can make you smile.”

Deng Ming-Dao, b. 1954
Chinese author and artist

“It is better to have loved and lost,
than never to have loved at all.”

Alfred Lord Tennyson

“Freedom is the right to be wrong,
not the right to do wrong.”

John G. Riefenbaker, 1895-1979
13th Prime Minister of Canada

“And in the end, it’s not the years
in your life that count.
It’s the life in your years.”

Abraham Lincoln

“Imagination is the one weapon
in the war against reality.”

Jules de Gaultier

“Never forget that only dead fish
swim with the stream.”

 Malcolm Muggeridge, 1903-1990
English journalist

“Do not follow where the path may lead.
Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Don’t take life too seriously.
You’ll never escape it alive anyway.”

Unknown

“Go in love, or don’t go.”

“What we do comes out of
who we believe we are.”

Rob Bell

“Courage is reclaiming your life after a devastating event
robs you of your confidence and self-esteem.
It is facing tomorrow with a firm resolve to reach deep
within yourself to find another strength, another talent…
It is taking yourself to another level of your own existence
where you are once again whole, productive, special.”

Catherine Britton

“Trying to be a man is a waste of a woman.”

Kate Reddy
“I Don’t Know How She Does It”

“It is ingrained in us that we have to do
exceptional things for God–but we do not.
We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things of life,
and holy on the ordinary streets, among ordinary people–
and this is not learned in five minutes.”

Oswald Chambers, 1874-1917

“He didn’t tell me how to live;
he lived, and let me watch him do it.”

Clarence Budington Kelland, 1882-1964

Feb. 2004

Dear Dad,

I’ve told you before but not often enough how proud I am of you and how much I love you and who you are and what you have done for me. So much of who I am today is because of you — from listening to your wise counsel over the years, yes, but mostly from watching you in action. I suppose all those years of playing with your office equipment and supplies and writing notes all over your office with your cool pens helped lead me to where I am now professionally. As I organize things, delegate jobs and direct projects, I also glimpse you and your leadership skills rising up in me. Your cool-headedness under pressure and the ability to look at things logically and pragmatically, yet with a touch of compassion and heart, is what I probably value the most. All those years growing up, I always knew you were the real softie!

I also watched you over the years go through challenging experiences and deal with difficult circumstances. You taught me that life isn’t fair and life is difficult, but that isn’t reason to make excuses or blame the world — you keep plugging away and do the best with what you have, and cherish the small moments of life and love your family and serve your church and honor your God and don’t give up on any of those things even when sometimes they seem to give up on you.

Thank you for the sacrifices you have made over the years and continue to make for your family. I know you sacrificed a lucrative career and worldly goods for us. And then you struggled over the years to provide for us in a way that didn’t take you away from us. Thank you for that. Please know that we never once went without the most important things in life — the love of two parents who loved us and put us first in their lives, and the many, many, many wonderful family memories that will last forever. I am thankful now that we didn’t have fancy cars or fancy clothes or fancy vacations. We have fancy memories of a family that loves each other.

We had the coolest family vacations — hiking, camping, canoeing, visiting historical sights — and enjoyed the best times together…and continue to do so. All these things, and so many more that I could write a book about, make you a wonderful Christ-like man and the best father for ME. And one of the things that I thank you for the most is the way that you adore my mother. Nothing speaks more loudly about your Christ-like example and compassion than the partnership you have with Mom and the family that together you have dedicated your lives to.

I thank God daily for you and for allowing me to continue to be blessed by your wisdom and wit and wonderful unconditional love. Thank you for living Christ and letting me see His face in your life so often throughout my life.

I love you.

Lee