If you have a sense of where you came from it's a good thing. My knowledge of my family is a bit shallow, really. Everything before my Mom's mom is real sketchy and my Father was adopted, so we know very little of his biological lineage even though there is a great heritage through his adoptive parents. However, what I do know about both sides of my family gives me feeling of belonging on one hand and a sense of destiny on the other. By destiny I don't mean some genetic fate, but a longer view of life than just my own. Kids give you that in one direction and parents and grandparents in the other. The more we know about them, the more we know about ourselves. If we look closely we can see patterns in those lives. Patterns of interests and abilities. Patterns of achievements. Patterns of health. Patterns of challenges. Who we came from, both biologically and ideologically is important and the term "family" can mean much more than just shared chromosomes. It does for me.

In the pages that follow, hopefully there will evolve a picture that will give my children and others who may care, a look into the kaleidascope of love that whirls in ever changing wonder around my heart.

Dee's Mom, JoAnn Durnal, left us for heaven on October 6 2006

To see a video of her funeral service click here
It doesn't work very well if you don't have a high speed connection. Sorry.

You will also need a QuickTime Player to view the service.
If you don't have one they are a FREE download.

To see a slide show of pictures from her life click here and feel free to look at some scans we've done of the pages she wrote in her bible and journals