Gerrit

Friends,

I am so sad to tell you that Gerrit, known to you as G, died very suddenly last Sunday evening.

He had had a very good couple of weeks just prior to that, as the new medicine that he had started taking in early July was really making a difference: not just in his ability to move, but in his ability to think and to speak.  The improvement was quite remarkable, although he was still very compromised.  Since we returned home after our family vacation, I had composed dozens of blog posts in my head about how our vacation had gone, and how things were going now that we were home again, and that Gerrit had started back at the day program...lots to tell you about, but the pictures stayed on the camera and the words stayed in my head.

We had the memorial service for Gerrit yesterday, and right now his two daughters are somewhere over the Atlantic, headed back home to the Netherlands.  They arrived here on Wednesday, and we had an extraordinary and healing time together dealing with Gerrit's death and planning the service.  I had so much support from family, friends, neighbors, and church family, and the events of this weekend felt so right in honoring Gerrit and creating meaning and comfort for ourselves, that I am still experiencing a kind of euphoria.  I know it won't last and that there are rough waters ahead as I cope with this loss.  But I am so thankful that Gerrit's last few weeks, and even up to those last few minutes, were good ones.  And that he is no longer in pain, no longer suffering.

Ginnie