A day of love and loss

It has now been three years this Valentine's Day that a voice that eloquently graced these pages fell silent. To readers of this blog, you know him best as North of 50. To myself and my family, he was the keystone of our family, the one in the middle that seemed to hold us all together.

To that end, this holiday has become bitter-sweet for many of us. We see the primping and gift-giving that surrounds us this February 14th. We long to reach out to our loved ones and embrace them with the love, fun and frivolity that Valentine's Day has come to symbolize. But for my family it is tinged with sadness at my brother's passing. His children that have come together as couples feel the pang of loss on this day.

For me, it is something I have been able to begin to look past. Nothing will ever take away his memory, his smile, his intellect. But my life and the life of his children must move forward. It is the natural way of things. Some may think that harsh. I do not. We were raised in a religious family. Death though sad, was also a celebration of God and his calling of a soul home to heaven.

So why do I write this post? For me it is a way to reach out to my nieces and nephews and family that called Don father and uncle, that they may themselves begin to again embrace this holiday as a celebration of their love for each other. My brother celebrated family like none other. Family is everything to him. Know that each of you now should embrace again the spirit of this holiday and turn your hearts away from loss and remember his embrace shall be with you always. His life was about celebration, a celebration that continues until that day when we all embrace him again in God's love.