REPOST from 12/02/04: A request to all from Melody

Hugs, Michele

Hi Friends:

A few months ago, Mel and I had a long discussion so that she could "clear her plate" before her final journey. She made a heartfelt request that I think pretty much each one of us can help fulfill. This is directed toward anyone who was touched by Melody (and her little poopy man lol). It doesn't matter if you met her in person, emailed, or just caught a post of hers here & there.

She asked that I have you write a little something for Ian to remember her by. Anything will do. Whether it was her kindness, her humor ("that was NOT" in the brochure!), her resilience, her love for her family... you get the idea. If you have pictures of Mel with Ian from any of the gatherings, please consider sending a copy of those as well.

I will ask that you send it to me so that I can make a scrapbook for Ian. If you are so inclined, you can create your own scrapbook page & send it to me. (I have no idea what page size this should be--suggestions welcome from all of you scrappers & then we can decide!) You can choose to write it out & snail mail it to me, or you can email your thoughts. I would like to have this completed by February.

When I visited her this Spring, she gave me a couple of pictures of her "b.c" (before cancer) when she was in Alaska. I had never seen Mel with long hair before that! She had a special love for Denali National Park in Alaska and had loads of pics from the mountains. I will try to post what I have in the near future.

I promised her that we could get this together. She and Rhonda had gone through and captioned all of her pictures for Ian. The week before I visited, Rhonda had also taken Mel out on one of her last excursions to the Hallmark store so that she could buy Ian's cards for all of the special occasions she was going to miss. She wrote notes in each and every one. We were in tears when we were talking about this. But she found tremendous relief in doing that.

Thank you in advance, dear friends, for taking the time to do this. This could be a most awesome thing for Ian and the rest of her family. Kai (her 25yo DSS) feels her loss very deeply. She raised him from childhood & she is the only mom he's ever really known. If you would like to just write a note for him as well, I can mail those too. He is an awesome guy who is pretty lost right now.

Hugs, Michele

Mikki, what a wonderful idea.  My son's friend got married last weekend and his Mother passed away when he was 12.  She had done a cross stitch and wrote a letter to him and given it to her sister to be presented to him on his wedding day.  All these years he has missed her and that was such a special gift and total surprise.  I will do something too.

What a wonderful friend you have been to Mel.  I am sure she is smiling down on all of us now.

L&H

Sara

I had a friend when I was a child whose mother died of Breast Cancer.  The girl was 6 years old at the time her mom passed away.  On her wedding day there was a letter for her from her mom, read by her older brother who had kept the letter all those years.  Let me tell you, there was not a dry eye in the church, but the girl was so moved that her mother would have thought of doing such a thing.

As I was wondering if I would ever see my youngest son graduate from high school or be here for my boys' weddings, I had thoughts of doing the same thing for them. 

I will definitely send something Mikki, please send me an email reminder if you can, because I will probably forget and don't want to be left out of this memorial to Mel.

God Bless Mel and all of you,

Love, Kitty