Well, here we are into a New Year, which I am sure all of us hope and pray will be filled with much joy and fulfillment of dreams and aspirations. I am sure that most of us during this past year have had our "ups and downs," but all of us have so much to be thankful for, and a lot of that thankfulness is expressed in music.

I love that old song, "When I'm weary and I can't sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep, and I fall asleep counting my blessings." Even when painful events come our way, we can still find reasons to be thankful. When Emma and I lost our son, Jason, at the age of 37 on November 12, 2014, we knew that we would miss him greatly during the remainder of our time here on Earth. And then, on December 7 of this past year when God called My Emma to Heaven, there was and always will be a pain that is difficult to describe. 

But I can take some comfort in KNOWING that they are now free from pain and that we will be re-united soon. Their passing brings to mind another song that I have always loved, "Precious Memories, how they linger, how they ever flood my soul, in the stillness of the midnight, precious sacred scenes unfold." Like most of you, I have always had so much to be thankful for - a loving mother who, as I have said before, was as close to being an angel as it is possible to be on this Earth - and a dad and brothers and sisters who truly loved each other. 

And then came my greatest blessing of all, my loving and wonderful wife Emma, who gave my life meaning and who, through her wondrousness, let me know what TRUE LOVE was all about. And I thank God every day for the love and compassion so wonderfully shown by our children and grandchildren, as well as by our many friends during these difficult days.

And now, PLEASE BEAR WITH ME as I send this special message to My Emma: "I thought of you today, but that is nothing new, I thought about you yesterday, and days before that too. I think of you in silence, I always see your smile, I know we'll be together again, in just a little while, your memory is a keepsake, from which I'll never part, God has you in his arms today, I HAVE YOU IN MY HEART!"