I want to thank each of you for being here. Your presence is the greatest tribute to our daughter Danielle and our family's warmest comfort.

High on a cold windy hill a week ago Friday, on Danielle's 29th birthday, following Danielle's San Francisco Memorial, my daughter Mila's friend Zoe, who had become Danielle's friend, came up to me and said: "Danielle was so special. I want to thank you and her mother for bringing her into the world." Zoe's sweet words left me almost speechless. I thanked her, and we hugged. But at the time I didn't have the presence of mind to say the obvious: Each of our children, Danielle, Michael, David and Mila, became whom and what they are on their own. Their mother, Sandra, and I, were only the midwives. But then again, it occurs to me that is probably what Zoe had said in the first place, and of course, she was quite right.

Danielle was many things. Above all, she was precious. Precious to her mother and me, precious to her brothers, Michael and David and their dear wives, Jody and Kara, precious to her sister Mila, and her dear husband Joey, and precious to her limitless friends, as they were to her.

Danielle was so many things, it is impossible to list them all. Certainly included among them were the things I said of her at her San Francisco Memorial:

Brilliant of mind
Elegant of body
Tender of heart
Generous of spirit
Ultimate imp
Passionate about everything
Finding humor everywhere
Without affectation or hidden agenda
Braver and more courageous than warriors real or imagined
What more could one ask of such a soul except the time to savor it's loveliness?
Our daughter Danielle