We're back to Leavenworth

The beginning of the Palmer Family Cemetery. 3C is our cattle brand.

Hello everyone. Hope you haven't forgotten about us. We've been in Idaho this last month for my dad's funeral and to stay with my mom -- I just love her so much -- and after 46 years of marriage I didn't want her to be suddenly alone. Theirs was a transcendental love, and I am blessed to have seen it.

My dad was anything but traditional, so a traditional funeral was out the window. He wasn't a religious man, but he was committed to AA for 32 years and that became his church. The service was a traditional AA meeting, which included stories of my dad and all twelve steps of AA. My uncle, who is a beautiful singer, sang an old and stirring hymn. Jill, a friend of Dad's, sang a moving country and western son. And I stumbled through "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, which I used to play and sing for dad at night as he fell asleep. And then we had an old west burial at the ranch. He always said that he didn't want to be buried in that "pile of rocks over town" (city cemetery), so we got permission from the county and started a Palmer Family Cemetery on the ranch. It's a beautiful spot, next to a hundred-year-old cabin where he can see the meadow and the mountains where we run the cattle each summer.

I've never seen a longer line of cars following a hearse. It stretched half-way across the valley. Before we reached the ranch, we transferred the coffin from the hearse to a wagon pulled by a team of horses. Mom rode in the wagon and all the family and friends who brought horses rode along behind the wagon for dad's "last ride".


We also saddled Dad's horse - a beautiful palomino - and led him along sans rider...as a symbol of Dad's "last ride."

Michael did the flowers for the coffin. I thought it was very special that he could do that. I know everyone loved them. He incorporated old-style barbed wire, Dad's spurs, and Dad's felt hat into an arrangement filled with wild flowers.





So, now we are back in Leavenworth. Thank you for all your concern. I hope we can see you sometime this summer.

-Ernest