Is this the Funeral?

Does it look like a funeral?

225 people came not to a funeral, but to a Celebration of Life. My dad was a man who loved to be the ring leader, he only appreciated noise if he was in charge of it. He would have loved this party. I was amazed by the love and the memories. Hearing the memories of so many helped me to see the bigger picture of my dad. I, as his daughter, saw him from one angle, one view. He touched so many people that I will never know and no matter how many ups and downs we had I know his heart was good and loving. I'm proud to have had him as my father.

This day was long and short, hard and easy, sad and joyous all rolled into one. It was what it was in many ways because not only of the man at the center but because of the cast of characters that made his private life what it was. I have an amazing, graceful, strong, beautiful mom and two amazing, funny, kind hearted brothers. When I figure out how, I'll get the slide show that my brother, Ryan, put together up and running for all to see. The Page clan is also blessed to have some pretty incredible add ons to the family as well. You all know I'm one pretty lucky person to have Mike around, but he seems to be the standard for this family, Carly and Jessy have been there through all of this with so much love and compassion, always willing to do anything. We are truly blessed!

Distant cousins

We hadn't seen this little girl in 8 years, we have pictures of she and Lily side by side from that anniversary party, because no one could tell them apart. This time the cousin had a major height advantage, but the similarities in appearance were still rather eerie! These girls are the 1st great grandchildren of identical twins. (My Dad's mom & aunt)

The After Party...

After the services, we headed back to my parents house to enjoy the beautiful April day, some inappropriate music. & great memories of my Dad. The laughter would have made my Dad smile.
Lily danced with the cousins.
Dax kept the beat.
Mike & Dosh did something weird with a bag of puppets left unattended. Dax tried to hit on a cousin.
A cousin hit on Finn...I'm gonna have to explain to my boys that no matter how cute or how distant the cousin, probably not the best source for dates!

Praises and My Dad

Praises...

The house is quiet, people have scattered here or there and for a few moments the house is calm, and I can think.

Dax has stopped throwing up! He threw up for hours this morning, but then he chose to eat pizza for dinner and well, I figured it's worth a shot. He's now peacefully sleeping.

Everyone else is feeling better...after a week of the stomach bug hitting every single person in this house, many with a repeat visits, we all seem to be holding our own tonight...pray that continues and no one else starts..we might have to post a contamination warning on the door!

There are flowers throughout the house and they are the happy flowers, not the sad ones. ( yeah, that might not make sense, but it's ok)

Finn has learned to climb up and down Nana's staircase like a pro, at least a semi pro.

Dosh, my medic, was here when Finn took a tumble down the stairs under his big sister's supervision. (I can say much, if it was under my supervision I probably would have fallen too)

Finn, after careful evaluation seems to have walked away with a small bump and a bit of rug burn.

Cards, Cards, & more cards. Notes from people via the Internet. I am amazed at the love pouring out. The notes that are coming from people none of us know, only Dad knew..I'm seeing more of my Dad then I realized was out there.

The planning is over. the CD's are made, the music is chosen, the programs are run, the words are written. Now we can only hope that we have been half the party planners my dad always was and that he would be pleased with our efforts to make tomorrow a day he would have loved. I sure hope we live up to his expectations!
A family that I love with my whole heart.

Having a great husband, having him back with me.

Having my whole little clan back together after too long apart.

34 years and 20 hours with a dad who I didn't always understand, but I always loved and who did his best at being a good dad. If he was not my dad, I would not be me, and I am so blessed that God gave me this family.

Laughter.

The ability to see joy in all of these moments.

A song for my dad...

There are a million, but this is one of the fun ones that was placed on the "at home after the service when it's just the close friends and family CD", with all the other inappropriate for church songs.

My Big Bitty Boy!

Finn turned one today! It's hard to believe it's been a year since this little guy debuted in our family. We can't remember life without him! I wish I could say these were his real birthday pictures, but alas, they are from our staged 1st birthday party we had on the Saturday before Easter. Probably better that we did it then, today was slightly chaotic and the little guy was a grumpy gus for his birthday, but he did get some cool presents, till Dax took them over...poor guy, maybe by next birthday he'll know how to take his presents back!

PS Traci, happy birthday tomorrow! I want to see pictures of you with blue icing on your blog soon!

The Gift of Music...

Today we spent many hours discussing music. Not just any music, but the right music. For dad, music meant so much that choosing the wrong things for his day seems like some sort of mortal sin. We've talked about music, we've sung songs to each other(thank God we're family, and not on American Idol), we've YouTubed for hours, we've visited stores, and we've hunted down lyrics. We still are not sure we know what we are doing, but there were moments in the songs today, moments where he was so close, and moments where we know he was talking to us. The sweetest moment for me today was hearing my dad send my mom a love song via Dosh and YouTube.

Tonight, while hunting for songs Dosh says, "What about Smokey Robinson, Dad was always having me look up Smokey Robinson stuff" We played some Smokey, we discussed we reminisced but Dosh was not satisfied that we'd found the right song, good ones, yes but not the one stuck in hi memory. "There was one, one he said was for mom, that mom loved. He made me find it for him even after he couldn't really talk well. This one was for mom." We searched, we found, we played, Dosh left the room. Mom knew, without a shadow of a doubt that he left this for her and she smiled, and cried. I too smiled and cried (I snuck out of the room for that part). We should have known he'd give us musical notes...

Here is his song for Mom...



I stumbled over to my Aunt Lynda's blog tonight and it seemed he had a little musical note for her today too, we might just need to use his message to her too, maybe she had the answer to our issue all along! www.xanga.com/GoodGuyTheBoss She also has some great old pictures of Dad posted today.

I've had several people ask, so here is the link to Dad's obituary, today in the local paper...

http://www.wnewsj.com/main.asp?SectionID=4&SubSectionID=4&ArticleID=164744

Happy Birthday...

For my husband who has been on his own for oh so long at his point...I wish you a happy 33rd birthday(you are 33, right?) I've been trying to think of a song to post for you and I keep coming up blank, so I took a trip to YouTube and this is what I found...




I thought that would amuse you. I thought about telling you I was pregnant, than later tonight telling you it was just an April Fools thing...but I wasn't sure you'd make it through the day. =)

I love you! Have a great birthday!

Blessings Abound part 1

I call this "part one" because I know it is only the beginning. I want to share with you some of the sweet moments that occurred today. There are some amazing moments that have occurred this week that I will soon blog about, I don't want to forget them. I need to have them captured somewhere other than in my mind. I'm sure some of them I will share with so many people so many times that people might just want to duct tape my mouth shut So maybe I should wait to post them until I get the pleasure of sharing many times with people first...we'll see. I hate that there are times I go to tell a story and I see the look of "yawn, we read this on your blog last night".

I digress...lets just talk about today

Today in Illinois...

My mother in law jumped in to help my family in my absence

A good friend delivered dinner to them

The mom of one of Lily's best friends relieved me of all school carnival duties.

A friend called and offered to pick up a cake for my poor husband's birthday(his mama is there, he'll be ok), and prayers were lifted.

Today in Ohio...

A short staffed bank manager gave a bank teller the next Saturday off to moonlight as the pianist for my Dad's service just because he loved my dad's many work related visits to his bank.

A neighbor walked around the street and shared the news of Dad's passing with all the other neighbors as she did this they all signed a beautiful card and gave money for quite a lot of restaurant gift certificates, but most importantly, they sent their love.

A hospice nurse ran into my mom & I in Walmart and no words were needed, only hugs.

An old friend who happened to be a pediatrician saw Finn on a moments notice on her kitchen counter, diagnosed him with a continued ear infection and called in a prescription for him immediately.

Walmart filled above mentioned prescription in record time. (totally unrelated praise, but worth mentioning)

My mom's sharing group gathered in the living room for a while just to show they love her. (Thursday night girls...I swear, this is us in 20 years!)

Several little neighborhood children who are usually up to mayhem and mischief or much worse rang the doorbell, and each presented my mom with a red rose and told her how sorry they were that her husband had died.

Life went on...

Early this morning at 3:28 my dad peacefully left this world, he was 61. My mom & the dog were in the room with him, but the rest of us had scattered. I think he was finally glad we weren't all watching him!

Yesterday, 3/28, was my birthday. Seemed like maybe a last little message from my dad that he made it through my birthday but choose that time...made us all smile just a little!

In the days to come I want to tell you more about him and I'm sure I will, but for today I am just grateful he is dancing in heaven.