Anne passed away on April 23, 2007 - For the last 15 years my wife Anne bravely fought a life-and-death struggle against cancer, specifically Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma. Between remissions, her life was reduced to spending months homebound recovering from chemotherapy, radiation treatment and two bone marrow transplants.

At the time of her first bone marrow transplant in 1997, I walked away from my career as a software engineer at Microsoft to be at home to perform my mission in life, being her caregiver and father to our daughter. Those 10 years were the best and most rewarding of my life and gave me a profound sense of purpose, it is good to be needed. April 2007 started out like many months in the last 15 years, Anne was sick and hospitalized with pneumonia. She has been in and out of the hospital countless times, but this time something was different, she didn't get better. On Friday the 13th of April 2007, Anne's condition became so bad she was moved to the ICU and placed on a ventilator (life support). After watching her lung function continually decline for 10 days, I was forced to make the decision to remove her from life support and allow her to pass away without pain, surrounded by loved ones; her parents I called in from Colorado, our daughter, I called home from college and me. Anne's memorial service was held on Saturday, April 28th, 2007 and her cremated remains were placed on Friday, May 4th, 2007 at Floral Hills Cemetery in Lynnwood, Washington.

Our daughter Audrey lost her mother at age 18 and has lived away at college the last year as Anne's health declined dramatically. Many times I heard Anne say, "If I can only live to get Audrey out of the house and away to college" not knowing that this wish would be our reality. Well Anne, mission accomplished and now I'm in charge of getting our daughter properly launched into adulthood... darling, you couldn't have made my job any easier, Audrey is a great kid.

As I emerge from this sad chapter and into the next chapter of my life, I will once again hide in my garage and turn to car restoration as a way of coping with the depression and sense of loss I am sure to battle for the months and years to come. I keep the faith that tomorrow will be a better day and every day I make progress is a day closer to the tear in my heart healing. I know Anne would totally support this activity as she always supported the joy I got from turning junk into jewel and loved the wonderful drives we shared together in the finished products.

Click Here: Anne's Memorial Movie

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