My dearest daughter Dollie. I would have never dreamed that three years ago today would be our last full day together on earth after a twelve and a half year journey. Had I only known... From the day that I witnessed you taking your very first breath of life, until we took that last truck ride, it never even crossed my mind that one day one of us would have to continue on without the other. Even that night that I had to leave you at the hospital, I wasn't too worried. I just knew that I'd pick you up in the morning and that you'd be right back on your blankie, right beside daddy. Right where you belonged. I was wrong. Three years ago, tomorrow morning at 8:06am, my world stopped turning. I ceased to live. I began to exist. And that's all I've done since. I could sit here for a hundred years and not be able to fully explain how my world has changed. But I could also sit here forever and thank my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, for you. Because of you, Dollie, I learned how to love, and to be loved in return. So, that's what I choose to do today, tomorrow, and every day for the rest of my life. As much as I wish that I could know, unfortunately, I don't know what eternity holds. But I pray, with all of my heart, that we'll be reunited. I pray that we'll come full circle, never to be parted again. I love you Sweetheart. And I'm everything that I am today because you graced my life, because you loved me. I'll never forget you Dollie. Please don't ever forget me. My all and so much more, daddy

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other. Then, someone at my side says; "There, she's gone!" "Gone where?" Gone from my sight, that's all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side. And she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port. Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says "There, she's gone!," there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout; "Here she comes! Here she comes!" And that, my friend, is dying.