I’ve got a poem I want to share with you.  No I didn’t write it.  It has a story behind it �?Mamaw had cut this poem out of the newspaper and placed it where she knew it would be found after her death.  Maybe she didn’t write those words, but I know they couldn’t have come from her any more than if she had.  It might not be such a great poem, but the message was personal for me.  In my heart I know that poem shows exactly what she felt.  I’ll admit it, it did bring more than a single tear to my eye, but it makes me feel so much better.  Now my spirits are lifted every time I read it.

To those I love

If I should ever leave you whom I love,

To go along the Silent Way grieve not,

Nor speak of me with tears but laugh and talk,

Of me as if I were beside you there.

(I'd come, I'd come could I but find a way!

But would not tears and grief be barriers?)

And when you hear a song or see a bird

I loved please do not let the thought of me

Be sad... For I am loving you  just as I always have

You were so good to me!

There are so many things I wanted still to do -

So many things to say to you...

Remember that I did not fear,

It was just leaving you that was so hard to face.

We cannot see beyond but this I know:

I loved you so!  Twas heaven here with you!

I have always felt that Bill felt the same way that his Grandmother did.  So when he died I gave copies of this poem and what he wrote about it to the family.  I gave his mother the original copy he gave me, he wrote it out in his own hand, I thought she would like to have it.