Dear Friends,
In the beginning of November, my brother and sisters and, most of all the nephews and nieces flew to Florida to celebrate my mother’s 90th birthday. My parents raised seven children, watched and enjoyed spending time with their twenty-three grandchildren, and eight great grandchildren.
We ate, drank, laughed and told stories. My mother blew out candles on her birthday cake and generally watched over her family with a look of peace, joy and contentment that one could only hope to experience once in our lives.
Approximately three weeks later, my brother called and told me that they are taking mom to the hospital. She had stopped eating and had told my brother and sister in Florida that she wanted to go “home”. She passed peacefully a few days later on December 20th.
There is always sorrow when we lose a parent or a loved one. But my mother left her family not in grief, but at peace. During her life my mother taught me many lessons about fairness; how to treat people, and how to live with faith and without fear. At the very end, she taught us all how to die in the same manner.
My mother would not want any of us to be saddened this holiday season, but to celebrate the joy of a very Merry Christmas; Happy Hanukkah; Happy Kwanzaa, and a healthy and prosperous New Year.
Keith J. Ahlers
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