Verkley Family Website

The Verkley Christmas hosted by Dad (John) and Patti-Jo in St. Agatha was a success! I just know Grandma would be so happy to know her children and grandchildren were together celebrating the holiday!

I uploaded Christmas photos into the tool that shows random photos on the right. I’ll post a few good ones here too.

Thanks to Frank for e-mailing me his photos from the party!

Moments in life.
I stood in line at the funeral home and couldn’t get over how scripted all this was. My mother had been to Holland this spring to see all her relatives. She had to make the hard choice of moving Dad to the nursing home for she just couldn’t do it any more. He is being well cared for. She had one on one with all her children as they took her to visit DAD. She had a surprise visit from her sister-in-law Agnes with her two girls just  weeks ago. She was there to celebrate the first 25 wedding of one of her children, Maria and Don’s. She saw all her extended family there again.  One of her coffee club members said that all the members were at the last meeting Mom was at two weeks ago. This club has been on the go for over 30 years. And finally she had all her children with her as she left this earthly life. This was no sudden loss, the powers to be had her touch all of us first before she left. We just didn’t see it. In a way maybe it was the way she lived that paved a way for her to leave us. Who knows. I just couldn’t stop reflecting on the events that happened to bring us to this moment in time. Awesome.
Listening to all the people Mom touched in her small way was wondrous. A few hundred people came to visit us and it was a celebration of her life.

It hits you hard when you hear from all the people, how she had touched them. How they will miss her smile and her big hugs. She loved each one of us, She had no favorites. So here I write with a huge gapping hole in me. A hole far bigger then I ever imagined. I have had many things happen to me in this life so far but this tops it all. This is so final. I have no regrets, no unresolved issues just a big hole. I think on reflection my mother was my secret hero. I would be lying if I said I never had issues with my mother. But somehow as I grew up I could see that it was just my little hurts that meant nothing in the whole of life. I could hold them dear to me and live in my own little hell or I could just throw them away. I threw the last one away about 18+ years ago and I am much better for it. It was only then that I could accept her for whom she was. I was not surprised at the comments from so many people. My mother was the genuine thing. To hear what all the grand children had to say was just awesome. My mother started to blossom as she became a grandmother. She had done things I never picked up on but they all felt special in her company. They all felt loved and accepted for who they are. With so many of them you might think it would get watered down but you would be wrong. In her own way we all got that treatment. It was just that we could see her in action as she interacted with our kids.

I could write much more but I keep getting this overwhelming thought going through my being. I don’t mean to sound like a wimp but my mother left some huge ideals in how she lived for me to live up to. Maybe that is why it was so hard to lose my hero. There is no excuse any more, I have to fill the void she left, be the love she was and just do it.
John