To our dear friends and family – 

The pain and helplessness that transformed Mom over the past two months have now become peace and tranquility.  Mom passed away this morning, November 21, 2020. It has been a true and certain blessing that we have been able to spend many of these last days together with her.  As we have focused on doing all we can to comfort and care for her, it has been a week full of tears, laughs, and memories.  Now our time and energy will be spent comforting and caring for each other as we grieve the finality of losing Mom.

We can’t help but feel frustration, anger, sadness, and disbelief in the events that have so quickly changed our lives.  Cancer is a terrible burden for any to bear!  Mom entered the hospital with seizures on September 11 and was diagnosed with glioblastoma shortly after that.  I can only best explain it as a freight train coming right at you and all you have is hope that it stops.  Our hope was not in a cure or a treatment to heal Mom, but to jump on the train with hope for providing her with the absolute best care and comfort as we rocketed through whatever was to come. Riding that train included enduring a sense of helplessness and heartbreak as the tumor grew.  Our only necessary brakes became love and support.

We are eternally grateful for the kindness we have received from all of you.   Whether it was cards, flowers, prayers, meals, messages, emails, phone calls, thoughts, face to face visits, or visits through the window, each thoughtful and kind effort lifted us up and encouraged us during this journey. Thank you.

With the current pandemic, we will be having a funeral for the immediate family in the near future.    We are hopeful that in the summer of 2021 we can hold a memorial service to honor her with your presence as well, and hopefully a time for hugs.  

In closing, we wish to share with you a poem from a book we received from United Healthcare Hospice titled “Gone from My Sight” by Barbara Karnes.

I am Standing upon the Seashore
Henry Van Dyke

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone"
Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

We will miss you Mom and will never stop loving you.  Godspeed.

The Ellsworth Family

Greg, Brian, Kathy, and Andrea, and our families