|
To My Family This beautiful poem was written and presented at the funeral by Deborah Vollmer. To My Family, I am the boy that taught a mother the love of a first born son. I lit the mother-loving spark in a heart that grew so big and so large that there was no limit to the children that could find refuge there, in Honey's heart, my mother's heart, my ever loving mother's heart. I am the boy that taught my siblings what a big brother could be; someone to look up to and someone to follow. I am the boy who desperately hopes that my falls, my sorrows, my mistakes that were so violently painful, so gut wrenchingly hard, that no other sibling sacrifice needs to be made. I am the boy that loved to play; through out my life, I loved to play. There were no better times for me than when a ball was in my hands. I am the boy that traded a baseball for a brand new bicycle and found the value to be equal. It took years for me to understand my mother's shock at my brilliant trade. I am the boy that had the heart of an artist and could create a picture so perfect and true that it was always deeper than just the form. The spirit of the picture was always there, inside my art, an expression from my heart for all to see that had the time to look. I am the boy who was given two beautiful children, and heard each of them say "da-da" for the very first time. My children are so beautiful, a pleasure in every way, they made me so proud that I bragged and told all that would listen to the stories of my talented loving son and my beautiful baby girl. I was the boy that wanted so much to be a good daddy, a strong giving father, a father to lean on, a father to love, father of the year. I know it is hard to hear that I did the best I could, but I could not be for my children what I never was for myself. I was the boy that spoke in loud boastful words of strengths I did not have and powers I could not find. I was the boy that could not find the man I was meant to be. I was a boy with no compass, no map of my own. I was a boy that could not find my own way home. I am the boy that wanted a strong family tree, with wide reaching strong and brawny branches that could hold all of me. I wanted a family together, not split in war, a family busy with loving, caring and sharing. I am a boy who never thought his life could count, never dreamed of great changes wrought. Yet, now I can see: what a difference I made, what miracles have come about. My family is healing and reaching out to each other in love. My siblings and my parents are talking about compassion and how they will use it every day in honor of me. I am a boy so amazed at what I see, all I can really say is glory be, glory be. I am a man now, a man who has come home. I am at rest with love and at peace with an incredibly great and marvelous spirit. Please know that I did the best I could. Yet still I have wishes, things to be done. Please take care of my mother and don't let her down, don't let her feel the dagger of another fallen one. Do not mourn me out of guilt, for I helped pave my own path. I knew this day was coming and faced it like a man. Do not let the promises made in my honor fall empty and crumpled to the ground, but live them daily, so they remain full, healthy and sound. I love all of you in my own way. I feel your love now, like never before. I will not say good-bye for our light never blows out, our energy never dies; we return to the eternal stream of consciousness that has no sense of time. Love, your son, your father, your brother and your friend; Joseph Frank Evans |