June 1, 1953 living life fully until July 23, 2004
My darling sailor...Our time together was much too brief. As newlyweds, we should have spent our first anniversary together, holding one another and expressing our love for each other. Instead, I shed my tears of love and pain at your grave. Time was something we didn't have a lot of but what we spent together was beautiful and loving. You taught me so much about loving and giving and sharing. Lessons I'm so proud to have learned but so sad you're no longer here to continue sharing them. How could we have known that our "I love yous" on the phone that day would be our last? I miss you so much. I never could have imagined pain so great and a black hole so empty. What shall I do now? Where do I go from here?

You would be so proud of all the kind and wonderful things that have been said and written about you. You made such a wonderful impact and difference in so many lives. Did you ever realize that?

It is so quiet in the house now...I keep waiting to hear 'Hon', but I never do.

I loved you so much then and I love you now. All the 1st's that I'm going through are so painful and hard. Nine days from now will be the anniversary of the first day we met, 10/25. How thankful I am that you took that bold step and called back to ask who I was and then asked me out. It was a fairy tale from that day forward, but we were supposed to live happily ever after. Isn't that the way fairy tales are supposed to end?

You were the man I waited for all my life, so how could our lives together have ended so quickly? I'm proud that you had Conor with us the last year of your life (something we couldn't have known) and I'm honored that I could be a part of that. Conor is back in Hawaii with Noriko and seems to being doing well, although be misses you immensely. How does a 10 year old deal with losing his father? How does a 47 year old deal with losing her life and love? I don't know....I keep trying to put one foot in front of the other and move on moment by moment, crying through many of those moments and smiling at the memories through others.

The USNS Assertive and USNS Capable have both been turned over to NOAA by the Navy. How will they know what a wonderful, capable and assertive Chief Engineer sailed aboard those ships? Where have all your shipmates been assigned? They will all remember.

I love you my darling 'big as the moon'. Kathy

I have a crushed heart and broken spirit. Kathy

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