Remembering "Aunt Dawn"

November 3, 1959 - January 14, 2005

Our sister-in-law, Dawn Simon, died unexpectedly of heart failure do to a blood clot in January 2005. Dawn was married to Chris's brother, Blaine, and was the mother of Elizabeth who is now in college. Dawn created a relationship with Judy and especially with Maya and Tahlia. She went out of her way to connect with us when we were in town for a visit. She always took the girls for a special time with "Aunt Dawn". She valued family and God and took the time to make those meaningful parts of her life. We will be forever grateful for the efforts she took to create relationships with her sister-in-law and nieces, and we miss her.

A friend of Judy's recently shared this image (taken from a reading by Henry Van Dyke):

I am standing on the seashore. A ship nearby spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts out into the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a white speck of cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone near me says, 'There, she is gone!'

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: 'There, she is gone!', there are other eyes in another place watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout 'Here she comes!'

And that is dying.

Pictures

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