Memorial for Stan

The memorial was held on Saturday over at the Grouse Ridge Shooting Range. It was very well attended, with a full house and lots of food. People came from all over: Palmer, Wasilla, Anchorage, Talkeetna, Oregon. I did notice, however, that just my family alone accounted for at least 5 tables full.

Anyway, it was good. There was a slide show of various pictures we’ve gathered of Stan and his family. People spontaneously stood up and talked, recounting their favorite stories of Stan. I read an email sent to us by my uncle from Oregon. There was even a 21-gun salute out back.

He will definitely be missed by a lot of people.

Rob and I have been working at the farm, helping Mother get it ready for its new owner. We spent a good 3 days last weekend hauling boxes and boxes and boxes of stuff out to various trucks – and still have more to go.

The entire contents of Stan’s gun room has been relocated to Rob’s garage so we can go thru it and organize things enough to start selling things. The guns have gone to my older brother’s house to do the same. Quite a bit of the outdoor equipment has gone to my little brother’s house till they can be dealt with, later on.

Probate on the will starts this week, but we don’t expect any major bumps there. It’s fairly straight forward, with no surprises or anything to cause undo distress.

The hardest part has been trying to wrap our brains around the fact that he really did die. It has put a lot of stress on the family and things have been said that are now being regretted. I am hopeful that we can overcome this eventually, but am also very disappointed. I really thought my family would never do this – but perhaps that was asking too much.

I know firsthand that the body can only take so much. I was hit with a cold – just the common cold – but man, it wiped me out. I started feeling the effects on Tuesday, went home early from work on Wednesday, and by Thursday I was begging people to put me out of my misery. My head hurt, my nose was clogged, I was sneezing every three minutes, my body ached, my throat was sore. Thankfully it left just as soon as it arrived so that by Saturday I could attend the memorial and look somewhat human.