Dear friends,

I was very active on this forum during the first half of last year. I made friends, I learned an incredible amount about any number of topics and I had loads of fun.

After July 20 I just dropped off the radar. It was not anything I had planned, but that day I lost my stepfather. I was much closer to him than I am to my biological father and it hit me much harder than I thought it would. He was 75 years old and fairly active and his last few days were wonderful. He and my mother were as happy as they have been in nearly 45 years of marriage. He went very peacefully in his sleep.

Dad was a big deal in the small town where we live and we received condolences of well over 1000 people during the calling hours and well over 400 people attended his funeral, which was preceded by a Masonic service, which we held on the front lawn of my parents home.

He had been a member of the local fire department for over 50 years so the department arranged for tents for the funeral as well as an honor guard and their funeral service and as we went to the cemetery we passed under an arch formed by two ladder trucks. When we arrived at the burial we also found out the department had hired a piper from Syracuse to play at the graveside. (I spoke to him for a few minutes and put in a plug for our group!)

I had assumed I would be back here shortly and everything would return to normal but I had a harder time dealing with my grief than I expected and it has taken me quite awhile for my life to seem normal once more. Everything I see and everyone I meet in this tiny village reminds me of Dad and that's a good thing, but it has made it harder to finish my grieving (if, indeed, it ever finishes), especially since I do not have a spouse or partner to help me process my feelings.

I never stopped thinking of this group but for some reason I was unable to sit down and log in. I don't know why but I suppose there are a lot of things we do or don't do that we don't understand. I had been thinking of returning more and more recently and just the other day I had a PM from Ted (Bugbear) noting my long absence and asking how I was and if I'd return. Thanks to him nudging me I'm back and I hope to stick around for awhile.

If you happen to think of it, raise a glass in memory of Mark Harvey of Sandy Creek, NY on March 1, which would have been his 76th birthday.

Thanks to those few of you who knew what was going on and expressed your condolences when I needed them.

Regards,

Brian