We all hold memories of you close these days. Each beloved member of your family remembers the ways you spoke well into our lives. We have group memories and we have individually unique ones. All of them are treasures because they recall your investment and dedication to your people and your world.
For me it will always be those long evenings in our very first year in Uganda, in our first sparsely furnished Fort Portal house. Those uncomfortable Gilligan's Island chairs that we added stacks of pillows to so our bums and legs would not go numb. The smell of the kerosene lamps as we read until our flashlights dimmed. The hours spent putting meals together with two small burners and no oven. The days were long and the evenings longer. You were quite bored, I think. All I felt was exhausted. But you sat with me and read and a year later, you would write that it was those evenings and long days of functioning on the most basic of levels that affected you the most.
We were thankful that you loved it all as you did. A comfort to us always, but especially in these last few years when you were ill and we missed time together with you. We have always known deep down that you were proud of us and that you even, at one time, longed to live the life we were living. Not many people feel that way, so when they do we hold it close in a solidarity that encourages our hearts.
So it is no surprise that in the days of our goodbyes with you it was your carefully labeled Africa picture albums that drew me in. These are the memories I love. So I made this, with your voice leading, because this is what I hold dear as I miss you and honor you always.
We’ll see you in the garden,
Cheryl