Daniel

The Family Tribute

Selma Dalke

June 24, 1926 – March 31, 1980

 

 

The family is a link that we all share in the lives we live,

That starting point in life’s journey that to every child is give.

Families are a gift of love, the first to each of us bestowed,

And the quality they provide varies by the examples showed.

 

To one example in our family we give tribute today,

For a person who has touched us all now recently passed away.

A good friend of so very many, a grandmother, mother and wife,

“Mom” reached the journey’s end to an already full and happy life.

 

The love that our family shares is a product of Mom and Dad,

Like where the total of the whole is more than the parts would add.

For the love that Mom gave us from a bottomless well must have sprang,

As each crisis she helped us through, a happier song she than sang.

 

Her maiden family’s closeness, a part of her security,

Mom instilled in her children a value of pride in unity.

Yet through our individualities she taught us self-respect,

As our unique talents she encouraged us to project.

 

Mom’s own personal values, so carefully researched and thought-out,

Enabled her to help us in setting goals and resolving doubt.

Through the years of easy impression and endless question she led,

Always showing a strong example yet letting us have our head.

 

Never afraid to discuss any of the things she believed,

Mom approached each situation with how to her it was perceived.

And while there were mistakes she made, they were only made in love,

Errors in how she should help, rather than pain from a greedy shove.

 

The love that into each our lives Mom so skillfully directed

Is the love of God above, which she almost perfectly reflected.

While now she goes to be with Him, her immortality on Earth

Is the legacy of love in those to whom she and Dad gave birth.

 

For each of us has been provided example of the highest grade,

A pattern to follow for a happy family to be made.

In the way our families we raise and other people we meet,

The continued impact of Mom’s life in a cycle we complete.

 

Mom, herself, for family only, never kept her love locked up,

But instead, reached outside as well, “passing on the communion cup.”

First our friends and then the wives we took, Mom adopted as her own,

And often to a homeless V.S.’er, our Christmas she would loan.

 

In fact, we recognize that most of you joining with us today,

Somehow, somewhere in her short life, were also affected this way,

So we offer our empathy, for the sorrow you also feel,

And ask you to remember Mom, in God’s love, which with time does heal.

 

In loving memory,