This is David again. In the previous posting to Helen’s blog, I said it would be the last entry. It turns out I grossly underestimated the outpouring of love by so many people and I need to make at least one more entry.

I was overwhelmed by the people who visited at the funeral home Friday and the number who attended her funeral on Saturday. We had planned visitation Friday for the time periods of 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM and then from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Visitation started as planned at 3:00, and continued until 10 minutes to 7:00 when I was able to grab a slice of pizza that one of my children had purchased. I was back at Helen’s side at 7:00 and the last visitors reached the coffin at 10:30. Many people stood in line for over three hours. Approximately 600 people came to the funeral home to honour Helen and to support me and my family.

One of the most touching parts of the day was the young people who came with tears in their eyes, to tell me of the influence Helen had on them as their teacher. About 70 former students visited Friday. The other thing that I had a hard time comprehending was the distance people drove to be with us. Excluding family members, there were friends from Ohio, Michigan, Quebec, and some a considerable distance from Wingham, Wawa, Toronto, Ottawa, Waterloo and Windsor. One couple spent all day Friday driving from Georgetown KY to be with us.

Helen’s funeral was lovely, and touched people in attendance. I was so proud of our children – our “original four” as they spoke words of tribute to their mother, and our chosen daughters as they supported their husbands. Helen made a phenomenal investment in her children, putting aside her teaching career for 18 years to raise them. Financial people talk about return on investment, and Saturday I was reaping the return on Helen’s investment. Our children have cared for us for the past many years, and stood strong with me by their mother as she battled this disease.

At the funeral, we listened to a couple of songs recorded a few years back – one a duet of Helen and I singing “It is well with my soul,” one of a solo by Helen and one of a college chorale in which both Helen and I sang. In attendance at her funeral were 6 or 7 members of that same choir. As I listened to Helen’s beautiful contralto voice sing “why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come … when Jesus is my portion, my constant friend is He … His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me” I felt strangely at peace as I thought that voice will never be silenced, and now sounds even better than Helen did in person.

I want to thank Pastor Gord Reynolds for his care in the past week, and for his role in celebrating Helen’s “graduation.” I thank my brother Dan, for reading on my behalf, the eulogy I had written, and for his words of comfort at the graveside committal service. Thank you Marjorie Hall for your loving hands on the piano, and thank you to the ladies of Gregory Drive Alliance Church for the reception you provided after the funeral.

To Rob McKinlay, and his staff at McKinlay Funeral Home, thank you for your courteous and professional help provided in such a compassionate manner. I entrusted to you the care for my mother and my father in years past, and now Helen.

To my family members including my extended family linked through my chosen daughters, who travelled here from British Columbia, Minnesota, Florida, Texas and Woodstock, thank you for making the circle complete. To my many cousins who stood with me, and who I know will be there for me in the days and weeks ahead, thank you.

And to all of you who came, to the funeral home or the church, or both to pay tribute to Helen, thank you.

To the residents of Chatham-Kent, drivers of the 100+ vehicles that pulled to a stop out of respect as we made the procession from Chatham to Union Cemetery in Pardoville, thank you. Our family and friends from the USA asked me if there was an unusual traffic law in Canada that required vehicles to stop. As I explained that this was not a requirement, but a respectful, local tradition, I was proud to be a resident of Chatham-Kent.

One final touch was a large flock of geese, which flew over as we reached the cemetery. Helen loved watching the Canada geese, and Tundra swans fly over on their migratory journeys. Often when she would hear their honking, she would run out of the house for a better look, and never failed to be excited by their passage. As we reached the cemetery, Pastor Gord pointed out the fact that the geese looked like an air force fly over.


There are many benedictions in the Bible, but Helen’s favourite was Jude 24-25.

“To Him who is able to keep you from falling, and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy – to the only wise God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore ! Amen.”