Today we remember a birth. Seventy five years ago my wife’s sister was born. She didn’t know she would become a big sister, a wife, a mother and a grandmother. Yet, Joan Marie became all of those things and so much more. We remember and celebrate that birth even though she left this earth 129 days ago to continue her life. She joined her husband Fred having waited 4290 until our lord reunited them. Joan Marie would have been 75 today. We will go visit her and take her a birthday balloon. We go with the certainty that she is celebrating in heaven. The sadness we feel is only for our own loss , not for Joan. Joan has been healed of all the aches and pains of mortal life and indeed earned her wings.
 It is something I always say to others, ” the person is not gone as long as their name is spoken.” There are several versions of this sentiment by various authors. Henry Scott Holland wrote a poem called, ” Death is nothing at all. ” The third verse of that composition goes like this ;

   Laugh as we always laughed

at the little jokes we enjoyed together.

Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word

that it always was.

Let it be spoken without effect.

Without the trace of a shadow on it.
 Today we will sing Happy Birthday with Joan once more, no matter our voices will not go unheard. We will smile and joke and share our laughter with her as we always did. It is what Joan would want. Her pictures, for I have many memories with her, hang on my walls and rest upon my tables. I do say hello as I pass her by each day, I smile and joke with her. And yes, in the quiet of the evening, when the bustle of the day is done I whisper a prayer for her. I pray that she waits for our arrival as patiently, as lovingly, as she did to be reunited with her husband. Her job here was done, and done well. I am proud to have known her, my wife is proud to have been her sister, and the world was a better place because of her. Happy Birthday Joan Marie.