Lynn's Continuing Journal


Friday, August 18, 2000



Tonight is my son Jeffery's wedding rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. Tomorrow night he will be married to a wonderful woman that has not only been a tremendous support to Jeff but to myself and our extended family during these difficult months and weeks. I know that Cees had wanted so much to be there and see this young man married to this lovely lady...after all, he had helped raise him since he was two years old. I know that he will be there, in our hearts and in the love that he helped create in this family.

My thoughts also go toward a precious friend that will be attempting a summit climb on Mt. Rainer on the same day as Jeff's wedding. Caroline Powell and 6 other wonderful women, I call them "The Heavenly Seven", will be climbing for Breast Cancer Awareness and Cancer Awareness in general. She made Cees' acquaintance in Longview last February and they had a wonderful conversation...and made quick friends. He was always so easy to talk to and with. Please take a moment to hold these women up in prayer for strength and safety as they climb to the summit and back for their cause. They are not professional climbers, just everyday folks like you and I, but they feel the need to do this for those that can't. What a tremendous gift they have to offer....!

I find it difficult to comprehend that tonight will also be five weeks since Cees has gone home to be with the Lord. It amazes me that life goes on with a vengeance.. There is no stopping it, nor slowing it down...it waits for no one. In a way, I guess, that's good. But as much as we would like, we can't go backward we must go forward.

In my forward motion, I have returned to work and I think it helps somewhat to be with my extended work family...I've been at Sysco Food Service going on 11 years and each and every one of my co-workers have shown such caring and concern. It's good to be able to just be yourself with those that you work with as one works through the grief process. I can only hope that my children have the same blessings as I do when it comes to that. I think they do.

It's also good for the girls, Mercy, Spirit, Faith & Ruby to be back in a regular routine. Little Faith is 12 weeks old today, it just amazes me. I took her down for her 3 month pictures this week. I will be posting them to her page on my kennel web page. Mercy will be coming into heat and I will go ahead as Cees and I had planned and breed her. The puppies will keep me occupied and there is just nothing like a soft warm fuzzy puppy to help remind you that life is still good!

My daughter Tracie called me the other day and shared an inspirational moment. She has a friend that has a black T-Shirt with a pair of eyes on it. And on the shirt it reads, "As God Closes One Door, He Always Opens Another....It's Just The "Hallways" That Suck." I thought that was pretty cool....so I guess this is the hallway and I will wait to see what's behind the new door. This next year will be the most difficult I think...a year of "hallways" and  "doors"...a year of firsts and getting through, but Cees would want to know that we could do it...he was never one to look the other way when something needed to be done and he wouldn't want us to do that either...SO, we will look straight ahead and muster the courage to forge straight through those doors and see what is on the other side.

There's still a lot going on in our lives...Cees' son Don and his lovely new  wife, Andrea were just married on the 1st of May. They will be having a wedding reception the 26th of August. Another opportunity to have the family together to laugh and rejoice and remember. One can't have too many of those kind of moments.

Then we will have Labor Day weekend. This will be another difficult first...we were usually building something on the house that weekend. I'm sure I and the girls will find something to do or somewhere to go...or, perhaps, we'll do nothing and stay home.

The following week on September 8th at 3:00 O'clock in the afternoon, we will have Cees' committal service. It will be a full military service complete with a bugle played Taps, a flag presentation and a gun salute. I think it will be the beginning of us truly being able to go forward...and a place to help time slow down just a little, a place to go and rest, reflect and remember a wonderful husband and father, but foremost a really good and very much missed friend... Lynn

An anonymous poster added this beautiful verse to our guest book...I wanted to share with you all:

God saw that he was getting tired, and a cure was not to be, so He put His arms around him, and whispered, "Come with me".

With tear-filled eyes we watched him suffer, and saw him fade away, although we loved him dearly, we could not make him stay.

A golden heart stopped beating, Hard working hands to rest, God broke our hearts to prove to us, He only takes the best.

What more can one say.....

God Bless & Keep You!

Lynn Crawford & The Girls,
Mercy * Spirit * Faith * & Ruby


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Genesis 9:13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. KJV

Remember friends, Cees and all the others that have gone on before us are still on their first day. We're still working on those thousand.

II Peter 3:8 But beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.