I'm glad that I have been able to post so many wonderful things about my Mother in my blog. Now, as I sit on the airplane headed back to Colorado, I want to spend a few minutes thinking about last week, the crazy roller-coaster ride that it was. I also want to write a few more words of my feelings about my sweet Mother. I really miss her, I feel super sad for my Dad, but I'm also very excited to get home and be with my family. I really miss my sweet wife and my kids. They are my life!! They are everything to me. If there's anything that I've learned this last week, it is that our mortal existence here on earth is SUPER short. I need to be more explicit and more determined in my love and time with my family. I really want to change the way that I love and care for my family. I want to be a better "me".
For the rest of this post, I plan to add the photos of last week intermingled with my thoughts and some of the story of last week.
Wednesday - 4/30/14 - Today was the day where we chose a funeral home to work with and we met with them to plan Mother's funeral. Wow, this was tough. I've never been through this process before and I was very nervous about how things would work out. But, things actually went really smoothly and the Funeral Home did a GREAT job helping us make the types of decisions that you just don't want to have to make. We chose "West Funeral Home" in Weaverville and I'm very certain that we could not have chosen a better group of people to work with. It was simply amazing. First on the list was to chose a burial spot for Mom. We were all a little nervous about this, but it went really well. We chose a spot in West Memorial Cemetery in Weaverville and again, we could not have chosen a spot better if we had planned for it. Incredible!! Here are a few photos of the location. As you can see, she is buried directly under a beautiful dogwood tree. The view from the spot is incredible and is exactly where Mother would want her mortal body to rest and await the resurrection.
After finding such a perfect spot for Mom, we then chose the casket, the vault, scheduled the funeral, reserved the chapel in Arden (the old Stake Center), wrote the obituary (I need to include that in my blog), chose the Paul Bearers, and started planning the actual funeral service. We also made some decisions about the plans for the viewing. Here is a photo of the casket we chose - it was BEAUTIFUL!
The day was long and emotionally taxing, but it was a good day. Tracie & Melinda came to the funeral home to help with the decisions, but only Tracie could stay (Melinda was feeling sick and I don't think she was up to the task). She had Tyler with her all week and he was a handful, but I had fun playing with him and trying to keep him from bothering Mother too much. It was good. In the evening, as we discussed the plans for the funeral program, we finally had some very good and very real discussions as a family. Tracie and Melinda were able to vent and express their feelings. The best thing we did was to just LISTEN. Melinda spent about 30 minutes talking about her issues, her pain, her struggles. We didn't say much, we just listened, and it seems like that was the best thing to do. It helped her get through and she felt better. Another thing that really helped were the flowers and the "edible arrangements" that were sent to us, along with all of the food and great people that stopped by. Here is a photo of one of the "edible arrangements":
Thursday - 5/1 - I don't remember a bunch about this day. We spent more time planning the funeral, Tracie, Melinda and Adam all worked on their talks for the funeral, which went really well. We just spent time together - which was really good. Dad was getting pretty sick, so I did run some errands to get him some things at the grocery store, but that's pretty much all we did. We also worked pretty hard to get 30 photos to the funeral home so they could make a Memorial DVD. In the early afternoon, Dad and I drove down to Hendersonville to tell Robyn what happened. I'm glad that I was there to support him on this trip. Robyn is definitely not really here. She was sad, displayed some emotion, but she immediately asked for $80 and seemed to move on. There was not much mourning. In some ways, this was really sad. In other ways, it made things much easier!
Friday - 5/2 - The day of the viewing. We were all very worried and scared about this day. We were nervous to see Mom as we knew it would really signifiy the end. We were worried about how she would look. We were worried about breaking down and not being able to get out of it. Turns out - it was totally an incredible experience. They did such a fantastic job with the emballment and with dressing her in the coffin. It was incredible!! She looked peaceful. She looked like she was asleep. We all held her hand, we stroked her face, we kissed her forehead. We had the time to spend with just her. We had a private family viewing at around noon on Friday. We spent about 2 hours there. We brought in some personal items to display around the casket. Some of her best artwork, her journals and scriptures, photos of the family. It all turned out so incredible. The actual viewing was at 6pm that night - it was also an incredible event. We probably had well over 150 folks come to pay their respects. We enjoyed spending time with them, meeting them, and letting them offer their condolences. Instead of being super "hard" and painful, the day of the viewing was a sacred event. It was incredible. The key in my mind was that before we went to see her body, the funeral home showed us the DVD they had made - this was a very spiritual moment for us. The DVD was slow, methodical, and didn't rush through the photos. An instrumental version of Amazing Grace played and it was just beautiful. I was so very happy with how it turned out. We all cried, we all mourned, but we were all happy. Here's some photos of the viewing and I've included a bunch of photos of the flowers that were delivered. These were incredible! Over 25 different flower arrangements!
Saturday - 5/3 - The day of the funeral. Wow, what an incredible and amazing day! The family was up and ready to go really quickly. We made it to the funeral home about 15 minutes early and then we took this little limousine ride down to the chapel in Arden. We were there about 40 minutes early, but it was great to sit in the little room that was dedicated for the family and we visited with everyone that was there. It was so good to see everyone again.
The funeral went really well. The talks were all great, the music was fantastic. The chapel and overflow were both full, meaning we had over 200 people in attendance. All of Mom's brothers and sisters came, along with most of their families. We also had most of the Weaverville Ward as well as many of the folks from Hendersonville that joined us for the funeral. Here are some shots of the Paul Bearers immediately after the funeral had completed. I included Dad in the photo. This was a touching part of the day.
Finally, here are some photos of the actual graveside ceremony. Dad asked me to dedicate the grave, which as a huge honor. Dad also jumped up and said a few words, which were really great to hear. He is definitely an incredible leader and I'm so very glad that he made that effort. Everyone appreciated the gesture, it invited the spirit and I think it made a big difference in helping me get through the dedicatory prayer.
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