Update On Joanne

Subject: RIP Joanne Daquano

A "beautiful" funeral was held yesterday in this smallish town. One of the town's most treasured could fight the good fight no more, after seven painful years.

She has left behind three incredibly resilient children and one superbly strong and enlightened man. She was just 41, my age now! The line-ups for the viewings were close to two hours long and the church was packed to standing room only, in excess of 400 by my math. As I said to my wife on our way home from the funeral, she may have gotten "only" 41 years on this Earth, but she affected more lives than the majority of people do in twice that time. She was escorted from the church by an honour guard of the Ladies Auxiliary holding tiny white candles, hockey teammates wearing their team jerseys and young ladies in full regalia with their Irish Dancer consumes. Simply joyous and heartwrenching at the same time.

Our neighbours, the four who continue to give at a time when they should be receiving, just pulled out of their driveway fifteen minutes ago enroute to Florida and ideally, greener pastures. As Mike said "they need to learn to become a family again and stand on their own eight legs". We wish them peace,harmony and healing! The timing was impeccable as I was literally cleaning my driveway with a pressure washer at the time and yelled out to all of them "I'm cleaning my driveway, just a few stubborn spots that don't want to leave" - that gave them all a good chuckle and they were off with a hearty goodbye. You will understand the driveway reference if you take a moment to read her website below.

I encourage all of you to visit her blog to fully understand what an impact this lady, and her family, have had and continue to have on this caring town: [Update on Joanne]

Maybe we all can learn a little more about strength, love and grace. They have certainly given us the lessons, it is our task now to simply share them with others.

Godspeed!

Dave

posted by Ted D  # 1:38 PM