Francis Wonderly

In a way that a child never thinks that school will ever come again, Christmas day will never end, birthday celebrations will live on forever...I thought my grandfather would live on past all of these and more. I guess at 97 you can't ask for much more than relinquishing a driver's license and not renewing your accounting permit.

It wasn't much more than a week ago that I was at the dentist where my grandfather had his dental work done and I was commenting to the dentist about how my gramps was a robot. He's got the genes, the mentality...and then poof-it's all gone. At a dinner-moment on tour with his beloved Salem Singers Francis Wonderly said stop. And that's it.

In a tangent world, that's what I believe. That he actually pushed a button and said: "STOP." That's the power that I thought he had. Maybe he was too long without his Madel and it was too much. In the end, I guess it was just Francis. He made a journey back to Lancaster, PA where many of the Wunderlichs of this world came through and maybe he thought it was a good place to put the book-marker down for good.

In an email tonight, my mom said it best-"I do okay until night hits and then I start thinking about never having a chat with FLW again..."

That's how I'll go to sleep tonight, knowing that the small notes are gone, but at least I have the moments to keep me.