Info and Photos from Chile

Hello, all.

I hope that by now, those of you who have visited Dad here in the space have heard that he passed away earlier this week. Dad never lost his spirit and continued to "Just Keep Playing" right up until the end. As a family, we'd like to thank his friends for the outpouring of love and support he was shown during the four weeks during which his health rapidly declined. I feel confident that the cards, phone calls, and visits of friends and family sustained him during his most difficult days. They also brought great comfort to those of us in his family, and we will continue to find solace in the knowledge that he was so well loved.

Dad left me with some specific directions about how to bring this blog to a close, but before I follow them, I'd like to share some information that I think will be useful to those among you who are sharing in the mourning of his death. Dad's wishes were to be cremated, so we have begun working on plans for a memorial service to be held in the next 6-8 weeks in the Portland area. As soon as those plans are finalized, we'll share the information with everyone here. In lieu of flowers, we've decided to ask that donations be made in Dad's honor to the following charities.

CCI Enterprises (now Excel Enterprises) "excels in providing vocational and personal development services for people with disabilities." You can read more about them at ccienterprises.org, make a donation online, and contact them at (877) 262-9382.

The mission of Incight is to "cause the success of education, employment, networking, and independence for people with disabilities." You can read more about them at incight.org, make a donation online, and contact them at (971) 244-0305.

I also wanted the next post on Dad's blog to carry through on the promise he made in the last one-- to include some of the amazing photographs he took on his recent trip to Chile with Nate and Judy. I wish everyone who knew him had been given the chance to hear his stories of this trip, but since that is no longer possible, I hope you are all able to sense from these photographs how gratifying he found his experience there.  If you'd like to see them in more detail or save them, feel free to click the photos to enlarge them.

Thanks for continuing to keep Dad in your thoughts, hearts, and memories.  : )

Liz