​Lori M Canady - April 16th 1952 – March 19th 2009

Before I begin, I would like to challenge each of you to look around and find someone in the crowd today, that Lori Canady has not touched. Try to find someone that is not a better person, or in a better place in their lives for having known her. Hard to do isn’t it?

Reading this will be tough; and I ask that you bear with me.  The fact that I, like you, am hurting in the worst possible way, reminds me that I am capable of the greatest possible emotion… love.  Without this pain, we would be unable to measure the joy, the happiness, and the love that we give and take in this incredible journey of life.

I’d like to suggest that each of us look inward, and understand that we feel this pain only as a reminder of our incredible capability to love.

Ok, here we go... I am “Ready”

On the day that my Mom walked me to the bus for kindergarten, I could read a newspaper and I could write poetry. I could tie my shoes, and knew that every step shaped what I would become. I had also been taught that as long as I was willing to reach for it, there was nothing that I couldn’t achieve.

She leaned down, kissed my face, and told me I was ready.

When I left for the Army, shaking hands and weak knees not knowing what was coming, she took my hands, kissed me on the forehead, and told me I was ready.

My marriage, kids of my own, jobs, adventures, in all of these moments of uncertainty; I was reminded that I was ready.  It was important to my Mom that her children be equipped to leave a mark in this life. It was important to her that those around her knew that if nothing else, she cared for them, and loved them with all that she was.

On her way through this life, in business, and with her family, she always elevated others first.  She told me and my little sister to try hard, and then showed us how to try harder  She told me and my little sister to live strong, and then showed us how to live stronger.

Six weeks ago as I was preparing to leave for business overseas, I spoke with my Mom. We talked about our memories, and about life. This time though, it was different, with both of us uncertain about what was happening, both of us not wanting to say goodbye, and both of us realizing that this would be the last time that our eyes would meet.  I did the only thing that I knew would bring comfort. I leaned down, I kissed her face, and told my Mom that she was ready.

My Mom is the strongest person I have ever known. I love you Mom

​Finally, as my Mom would say, “Celebrate the living”  …and to the living…  Marc Canady, you are an incredible and amazing man. I look up to you in every regard. You are the embodiment of what a man becomes when he makes the promise, “For better or for worse”. You have set the bar for me, my children, and their children to come.

​I love you Marc, and thank you for being the man that you are.

My recent "vacation" was not all vacation. While it was an incredible time spent with family, the intent was to visit one of our all time favorite spots for vacationing, and while there, spread the ashes of my mother in a Caribbean inlet that she had watched countless sunsets from. ​

Even in writing this, my easily captivated brain wanders through traces of my mother's memory. There is a want to wash them all away, but a constant longing to re-think and re-touch those flashes of life at the same time. Hence the infection
​
The tears are consumed not only by the pool that they created in my hands as I hide my emotions in a bathroom stall at work, but also by the creases in my face from the smiles that interrupt them as thoughts of her life and legacy race across the panoramic screen that is my minds eye.

Watching as my step father (Mom's husband for the better part of her short life) carried the ashes to the location for our little "ceremony", I saw his steps get heavier and more labored one after the next.

Walking through the scene that Mom had photographed so many times from her perch in a lounge on the beach, or a chair on her deck, and during her walks with her husband... thinking of being the focal point in an image that she never saw coming... this hurts... I feel this.

With spray from the waves splashing onto us all, and our feet wet from the ocean, we had reached "the spot". The sun had just started to touch the horizon, and if Mom were there, her camera would have been working overtime.

Gorgeous. Terrible. Unsettling. Liberating.

The waves thrashing the rocks with a volume that seemed to mute everything else, the setting suns rays dancing across waves as ambient light strangled the true colors of things, and individual emotions and lack of understanding written on the faces of everyone witnessing this final farewell.

From the small box slowly came the ashed remains of a force this world will likely never know again. As the breeze carried the fine powder, the ocean seemed to calm and quiet. As the tears followed the ashes down, the sun seemed warmer in its final stages of the day, and the humidity seemed to embrace us all one last time.

Its in these memories that I find the infection. I find the repeat and flashes of those moments, and can re-live the moments from any angle. I see the faces, I feel my wife's hand in mine with a gentle squeeze, and I see my children looking up to me for answers in how to react.

If anything, Mom left us all with one more powerful, beautiful set of images to look back upon and embrace when the sorrow that follows the infection seems to resurface and sting the most.

I miss you Mom. I love you Mom.