Honey's Eulogy

Honey's Eulogy

On July 6^th 2017 my dearest honey's pain came to an end. I'm not sure how to put into word's what and who she was...to me, she was everything.

She'd battled cancer twice in the past five years. The first was breast cancer and she beat it rather quickly. After eleven months of treatments, she was declared 'cancer free.' We were given a little over two years of complete remission and during this time, we moved to Iowa to be closer to my family. My younger brother had suffered a series of strokes and we wanted to be closer to help him and his wife. While still four hours away, it was the best we could manage. As it turned out, it was his family that came to our needs when honey's cancer returned with a vengeance seven months after our move.

My sweet girl has always been a giver. She loved everyone and gave of herself freely, in time and resources. Her constant encouragement to others and genuine desire to see them succeed made her a beacon of hope. She was many things...a police officer, a fitness trainer and martial artist but mostly a loving mother to her two boys (and EVERY neighborhood kid they came in contact with!) and my best friend. We met in a dojo at a point that in each of our separate lives, there was chaos and discontent. It was not love at first sight...in fact for the first year of our association, she only came to try and knock my block off. I was her instructor and she didn't like me very much.

As I came to know her and witness the joy she coaxed from others, I was awed by the passion she had to help and trust those less fortunate, despite her own pain and deeply hidden sorrow. I couldn't help but fall in love with her. She later told me that I was an acquired taste...you got used to over time!

Her sense of humor and willingness to tackle new challenges served her well as she went back to college. Sadly, her illness prevented her from graduating by a mere three semesters. She was frustrated but rarely morose by anything for long.

She had just turned 49 and was training hard for her first fitness competition, which she planned on entering for her 50^th birthday when the cancer returned. We first thought it was a training injury. Pain in her lower back, that was eventually diagnosed as a compression fracture caused by bone cancer. For the next 17 months she and her superb medical team aggressively treated this terrible disease but it kept mutating to new places and the cost on my dear honey was staggering. Throughout it all she pushed herself to the limits and beyond. Cancer may have taken my girl but it didn't win because she NEVER quit!

For all of her pain and misery, she gained a family that loved and cherished her...almost as much as me. As for all of our nearly eighteen years together, everyone loved my girl! She brought out the best in people and in me. She made me a better man and a better person by her shining example and unwavering courage. God has truly recalled a special angel...

As was her habit, long ago she left a note in my lunchbox ( Done with colored pencils) which I kept and framed. She thought I was silly but it struck a cord within me..it reads.

Good Morning my sweet man. :o) Thank you for letting me be me, even when it's hard.

I love you so much! That will NEVER change.

See you at the finish line in all our races....Your Loving Wife. :o)

I'll be along sweet baby...please be patient and wait for me.