Hey Pat in your writings about yourself, you got it wrong!  Thinking about our 48 years together I realise we really had a beautiful happy marriage. Yes this is absolutely true: Our quiet, sharing love was a spiritual union of souls: two individuals united before God but still separate, different individuals. We respected each other’s privacy but were still touching. We were always aware of each other’s presence even when we were not in the same room. Pat your love poems are a testament to the strength of that love and are the words most true about our marriage.. Oh there were stresses and tensions but nothing serious; not even the times you got very upset and angry with me. Always remember our realest and best achievement is our son, his wife and our lovely granddaughters. A successful family is a far greater achievement than any military victory or political movement. In China a successful family is the be all and end all of life itself.

 Pat you also  achieved what you wanted above all else: to be a published author. Your books and poems and thoughts survive you.  You are respected by your colleagues at the University of Waterloo and look at the fellow writers that came to your funeral some from quite far. Everyone you touched thought only good things of you and that you were a success.

The last few years were near perfect despite your frequent depressions, since pensions and benefit packages meant we had no financial worries and were relatively well off.. We had even planned and paid for that  return to Nova Scotia you so wanted. Wish Christ had defeated cancer as well as Death but cancer is part of that great sea, that some call free will, that we can’t change only steer our ship on a tiny bit.

Even religiously your life is a success. The tributes from Holy Saviour are an achievement. I’m still receiving complements on your gentleness and faith. It is not often that the choir dedicates a choral BCP evensong to a parishioner as it did on January 15, 2017. You had a “movement,” the promotion of the Book of Common Prayer  and the choir was very much aware that you and I were BCP Anglicans. Always remember our journey to God is not over yet. You are in Heaven now waiting for me in the place  Christ promised to prepare for us. God still has plans for us; we are to achieve C. S. Lewis’  “God and us” goal. Okay I’m feeling real pain but by not being called first I spared you this pain and I know how much you feared pain.  Only thing that could have made things really perfect would have been  dying  together hand in hand asleep in our bed. But it was not to be. Now we  both wait on God’s will  and plan for us – you in Heaven, me here on earth. Pat I love you forever.