With Memorial Day coming up so many people come to heart and mind. I hope to make the yearly trek to Oklahoma where we scattered my daughters ashes at the scenic overlook in the mountains. She was my butterfly; her life held in beauty for a fleeting moment before breaking free and flying on to the next phase. To be absent from the body is to be present with Christ therefore if I am in Christ and she is present with Christ, she is still with me.
     Two very important friends of mine went home this year. It hurt so much but I knew, just like with Grace, that they are with me still. They are free to love perfectly. We still strive to learn to love with perfection, but without the confines of flesh, they now can. They are made whole and perfect in Him who chose them.
     I think of my dad and grandparents. Tears would fall if I allowed myself to think of the lifetime I have spent loving people and how many of them are now gone but I know with all that I am that they are not beyond my reach. When my heart is missing them and my soul is reaching out for them I feel them returning that love and reaching out for me. Through God connection is maintained. In honor of loved ones gone before I would like to post the poem I read at my father's memorial service. It is titled:

Who We Were

Where warmth touches the first bud of spring,

And stirs up from within nostalgia from sleep,

And draws up through the heart memories of love,

And draws out old tears from their keep,

Is the story of who we were.

All taking place on fields full of color,

Our laughter dancing on sunlight and breeze

Where we raced, we jumped, we played and we fought,

We skinned up our elbows and banged up our knees. 

We won, we lost, we agreed, disagreed,

We climbed the mimosa in Maw-maw’s front yard,

Summer days often meant working in fields,

But we learned to live and work hard.

It’s a part of who we were.

Where Mike and I kneeled to pray each night

On the arm of our daddy’s chair,

Where day darkened skin, and morning began

And ended with sun-streaked hair,

We ran through puddles, scaled fences and gates,

Rinsed in the cold of the garden hose,

At times we cried like there was no tomorrow,

Not knowing what tomorrow would hold.

We broke, but we healed, got angry, forgave,

Manipulated to get our own way,

We suspected, mistrusted, still reaching out,

Hoping love would still make a way.

For better or worse these pages we’ve written

Within each of us now intertwine,

To tell who we were, on our way to becoming

The family we are at this time.

For better or worse, a part of each other,

Integrated within each heart,

We weep when one hurts, we grow distant at times,

We pull together when someone departs.

I’ll never forget as a little girl,

Laying my head on my father’s chest,

Hearing his heartbeat, not really knowing,

Girls grow up and father’s one day lay to rest.

I’ll never forget learning of God,

Knelt at the arm of daddy’s old chair,

Feeling loved, growing in strength and in faith,

Innocently offering up prayer.

The biggest part of who we were

Carries us through this pain,

Because we grew up growing in God.

And were taught how to call on His Name.

So when summer days turn gold with the autumn,

And winter days close autumn eyes,

Spring will stretch out and awaken from sleep,

The warmth of the summer sunrise.

There reminiscing in fields full of color,

Nostalgia will wake and love will stir

The memories of the better and worse

And the longing for who we were.

Kimberly Camille Wigington-DuBose

February 15, 2008

My dad had "autumn eyes." they were a beautiful shade of hazel green.

Rest in comfort and joy in the arms of our God.