I give thanks for my beautiful and loving mother, Jo Anne Keyes Thaxter. I give thanks for the gift of salvation, and the knowledge that she is in the eternal embrace of her lord and savior, Jesus Christ. And I give thanks for all of you who are here because you loved and cared for my mom, or you love and care for those she loved. There are few occasions in life where we have a captive audience assembled with whom we can freely share aspects of our mother that made her so cherished and adored, so thank you for being here and allowing us the honor of sharing. In the New Testament, Paul writes to the Colossians in Chapter 3: Colossians 3:12-14: Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. I chose that passage, because of its reference to the virtues my mom possessed, and most of all the virtue that is love; because there is no greater example of love in my life than my mother and how she lived her life. Others in our family will share with you different aspects of my mother, but I wanted you to know the love and devotion she showed as the wife to our father. On their first date, my father actually asked her where she had been all his life, and family legend has it that she responded “Right here.” And “right here”, with my father, is where she stayed for nearly 60 years. Those who knew my mom knew she was very comfortable on stage, but those who know my dad know his undeniable ability to command an audience. My mother never competed for attention; but rather, she adoringly gave center stage to Daddy. She also had the gift of being his perfect audience herself, always listening with great attention and interest to anything and everything he had to say…no matter how long the spirit moved him to speak. In a present day where many children have been raised to believe, perhaps, the world revolves around them, my mom always felt the greatest gift she could give her own children was the security of a strong and enduring marriage of their parents. She raised five children with love and care that my sister Joey will affirm for you today, but it was always clear that our father came first. That devotion was traditional...it was beautiful... and it was rare. I miss my mom more than I can comfortably express, but as I know you can all well imagine. But I give thanks for the great blessing of the 50 years I had with her as my mother, and for the blessing she was to my father for even longer. For better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in sickness and in health, she was there beside him in love – binding all her virtues together in perfect unity.