The visitation..funeral

The day of Mom’s visitation was a lot of errands and getting last minute details together for the funeral. A few nights before Dad and I went through the pictures to create photo boards. What I realized was Mom was great at taking pictures with all the family, but she avoided to be in any of them. She also liked to get doubles of everything. As I looked at the duplicates of all the photos, I was reminded of the time when my family went to South Dakota. Dad was getting tired of us making him travel to all the waterfalls. When asked to go see yet another waterfall, he commented, “You’ve seen one waterfall you’ve seen them all.” He made the same comment about the buffalos. So as I looked at all the scenery photos from that trip and then realized I was looking at the doubles of those scenery, all I could think was I seen one scenery photo, I have seen them all. I knew if Mom was there we would have just laughed about that time and so many of our other trips together.  

Among the pictures I also found a beautiful picture of Mom, which I later found out was for the church directory taken only a few years earlier. It was gorgeous and I was somewhat miffed that Mom had never shown me the picture. So I was able to find enough pictures for a few photo boards, that Elissa was willing to put together.

Dad also tried to help. He wanted to get the headstone picked out right away. He had brought poem after poem to be added to the tombstone. It was explained to him that space was limited. Not convinced, Dad and I had stopped at the monument to start to determine options. This helped Dad understand more of what was needed on the tombstone. However then Dad shifted to the casket. He kept bringing up things after things to put in the casket. I had mentioned this to Rita and Grandma and they both started laughing with the thoughts that we may have to get extra pallbearers to carry the casket. Dad then brought out a crock that we thought he was asking to put in the casket. For at least this item it was just to put out on a table as decoration, because painted on it was the front view of Mom’s restaurant she had owned. Grandma, Rita and I were all relieved as we weren’t sure how we would have told him “no.” Hindsight we should have put a lot of stuff in the casket since now Dad won’t let me get rid of anything.

At the visitation a lot of people came. It was non-stop of people. Fortunately I stood next to Grandma who was able to introduce me to people or remind me who they were. For the most part I kept my composure. The only times I would lose it is when someone would mention how much Mom loved me or was proud of me. That was so important because in the end that is all I wanted to know is that she loved me and that she was proud of me. Her approval was all I cared about.

That night Dave arrived but was completely sick. On Wednesday getting ready for the funeral Dave decided he just couldn’t go as he was so sick. I was disappointed and I don’t think Dad completely understood, but I was more concerned of just getting through the funeral.

The funeral was nice. Pastor Sam did a great job and it was obvious that he was just as much impacted by the loss as the rest of us. Pastor Sam did ask for comments from those in the audience. People said nice things. I then felt led to speak. As soon as I started to speak I got chocked up, but I pulled myself together and was able to speak all my thoughts. I think the hardest part of the funeral was when we sang Amazing Grace since Mom and I had sang that so often. I tried to keep my composure though as I just needed to remain strong for Dad.

After the funeral Dad and I took one last look at Mom and said our good-byes. It was still almost surreal that we were burying Mom. How did we get to this point? I was supposed to have about another year with her. I was not in control though and so I had to just accept the situation. Dad and I traveled to the cemetery. Pastor Sam said some great words and led us in singing Jesus Loves Me. Another song Mom and I would sing a lot. It was time to leave to go back to the church. As I got into the car it hit me that I was leaving Mom. I had spent almost the last six weeks by Mom’s side and now I am leaving her behind for good. No more talks, no more walks, no more singing, no more hugs, no more anything. I lost it. I just started bawling. All the tears and emotions I had held inside for those six weeks came out in this one moment. I wasn’t ready to leave and I wasn’t ready to let go.  Dad comforted me during this time. I knew he felt the same way. Trying to help each other during this time we drove away to have lunch with all the friends and family. It was a nice time, but I was ready to go rest at my parent’s house. Dad and I spent some time talking about the day. I knew I would need to get back home, but was concerned to leave Dad alone. I think Dad was afraid to be alone. That night I spent a lot of time thinking how will I make this work to be there for my job and family, but be there to support my Dad. I realized how quickly my time worrying about Mom shifted to worrying about Dad. I was exhausted and finally fell asleep.