To you three...

  It is most usual for someone who is speaking at a funeral or memorial to speak of the dead. Accomplishments and personality. Characteristics and perhaps a few flaws...if only to remind us that they, although great, were human. We are to talk of who they were on blissful Fridays and how they overcame stressful Mondays.

  But sometimes those things aren't necessary. Sometimes there are more important things and most times...those things go left unsaid.

  Even if I stood here and boasted of Aunt Samantha's beautiful countenance and strong abounding love...it would still be leaving something unsaid.

  So, I turn then to you three. You beautifully broken three. First... I love you.

  Second, I want you to look to the woman sitting just there... that is my mother. Alive. Grieving her sister but still alive. So when I tell you I understand what you are going through it is not that I understand the pain of losing a mother...or even losing your mother. It is that I understand sharp, severe, and insurmountable amounts of pain.

  But no one wants to talk about this pain or these moments. No one wants to because no one quite knows what to say. So, I will talk about it. And I encourage you too.

  Let's talk about the moments...

  When you want to throw everything across the room that isn't bolted down just to watch it shatter into a million pieces. And you want an audience so they ask what is going on with you just so you can turn around and yell strings of 4 letter words at them telling them they don't get it.

  Let's talk about the moments...

  When you wake up and the sun is shining and you can't seem to understand how when nothing seems more absurd than a shining sun knowing your heart is as black as the darkest night.

  Let's talk about the moments...

  When someone mentions how stressful their day was because the traffic was heavy, the grocery store line was long, or the waiter messed up their order...and you want to tear their jugular from their throat while you spit at their feet telling them they don't know the first thing about stress.

  Let's talk about the moments...

  When you hear "I'm sorry" for the 15th million time and you want to scream "How can you be sorry? Sorry for what? That she is dead? That she isn't here anymore to hold me? That she isn't here to tell me she loves me? What exactly are you sorry for?"

  I get it. I get this pain. And trust me when I clichely say "This too does pass... if you allow it." When the world is caving and the pain gets too much remember 3 simple things...
1. I am Tim, Josh, Jon.
2. I am here
3. I am loved
You must find your center.You must find a new normal. And find you will.

  And one day...you will wake up and the pain won't cut as deep. One day you will wake up and the memories of New Year's Day wont pierce your heart as fiercely. And one day you will wake up and all the things that are broken inside of you will blossom into a beautiful mosaic of scars.

  I can't promise that you will not rip open one of those scars perhaps just to watch it bleed to make sure you still miss her. You will always miss her. She will always be missed. But rest assured when her laughter starts to fade just a little and her face becomes a little blurry without a picture that doesn't mean that her memory is dying. It means you are healing just a little. And believe me when I say...there is NO way someone that magnificent could EVER be forgotten! Ever!