Sympathy Card for Doug & Short Story of His Goodness

Aloha dear ones,

It has taken me a while to get this picture edited and posted. I already battle depression. So it is with tears I finally face this post.

Thank you everyone, for all the kind words, cards and support. Seems with each close loss, I am unable to "bounce" back like when I was a young whippersnapper. Now I am just an old whippersnapper.

Basically, I just used distress inks to create a sunset. I dropped some water and some tears onto it and lifted the drops with a paper towel. I used Sakura gel pens in various metallic colors for planets and stars, shimmering in the twilight sky. Using a white gel pen I tried to create a shooting star but I was crying when I did it so it looks shaky. I sprinkled glitter over the wet ink so the shooting star would sparkle with little gold bits falling behind and around it. I stamped a few pine trees along the bottom. The focal for me is the night sky. I cut a window out of white card and laid it over the sky layer. Inside are our heartfelt words printed and then run through the Minc machine in gold foil, as is the sentiment.

Doug loved astronomy and the sky. He created and controlled all the minute details of the giant mirror and telescope on top of the highest mountain, Mauna Kea on our island. Here are links to their beautiful views of the night sky from 14,000 feet --

The Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea

The Stars and Planets from Keck

One day Amy called me to invite me to go up to the top of Mauna Kea to see special highlights for that evening, certain stars and planets, shooting stars. Bruce was on the mainland. I met them and they drove me all the way up there. Doug told me to dress as warmly as I could because it would be below freezing and windy. OM goodness, was it ever. We got out of the vehicle and Doug and Amy had brought me all kinds of goose down and other blankets, a sleeping bag had me lie down on them, zipped me up, tucked me in, piled all those blankets on me and had me look up at the black sky. It was filled with diamonds!!!! There were even red, blue and yellow diamonds! We saw planets and shooting stars with absolutely no light to distort the view. I realized we were looking at light from when Jesus walked the earth. Some of the light takes that long and even longer to reach our eyes here on earth. It will be a night never to forget, ever. And Doug was behind this whole plan because he knew I had a little telescope to look up at the wonders of the universe. That was a tiny bit of Doug.

A few years ago Doug and Amy moved to Seattle and he went to school to learn computer animation and then started a company for a video game, all his own. The man was a genius. I didn't even know what mensa meant until after Amy and he began dating. You see, our family was not very intelligent, at least on our side. The rest of my dad's siblings' children and grandchildren are all brilliant doctors, professors and attorneys, etc. But our family? All military, and me, the lowly nurse. So Amy marrying such an intelligent man was both an intimidating and very humbling experience for Bruce and me. We are truly grateful for all the love and hard work Doug always did to care for Amy and his family. Thankfully, we have a deep belief in Bible promises and long to see him again soon, when there will be no more sickness, death, no more mourning, no more crying, no more wars, nothing evil. Doug will be healthy again.

(Rev 21:3, 4; Isaiah 33:24; John 11:11-27; Psalm 37:10, 11 & 29 and so much more).

Thank you all for being there for me

when life can be so

very hard ♥