1. All of the family who were in town at the time of Dad’s death were able to be with him in the hours before his death. I was told of a middle of the night session with all of them sitting around his bed in the ICU ~ nine of them…telling stories, laughing about family memories, and holding his hand and telling him it was okay to go.
2. The Funeral Director who we had could not have been more wonderful.
3. On Monday evening the Presbyterian lay minister who was going to conduct the funeral service came to Mom’s house to talk to all of us. She did not know the family, and we all sat around the dining room table and told her the story of my Dad’s life; we laughed and cried and told more stories and on Wednesday at the funeral, she used all the information we gave her in a very beautiful eulogy that captured the spirit of my Dad and the family....she even hinted at the fact that she knew the grandsons were in the kitchen that night celebrating my Dad's life with large quantities of Corby's whiskey.
4. Lone_Hawk and elisejk ~ dear precious friends….if you see this…I cannot put into words how I felt when the flowers arrived that you sent to my Mom. It meant so much to her that even “strangers” would do such a caring thing. God bless you.
5. I told my Mom how many of you have been praying for Dad for years now…and she wept, knowing that those prayers sustained her and protected him from suffering at the end.
6. On Monday night, we had a private time for just the immediate family to go to the funeral home to see my Dad's body. As we left my Mom’s house….it began to snow…beautiful big soft flakes…it snowed hard on the drive to the funeral home and it stopped as we walked in the front door. It had not been predicted and never snowed again the entire time we were there.
7. My Dad was a World War II veteran and we chose to have a flag on his coffin. The funeral director placed a pleated flag on the bottom lid of the coffin…and many people said they had never seen anything quite so stunning at a funeral. My brother took off his own Legion cap and put it in my Dad’s hands. Some of the rest of us had little personal things to give him for his journey. The room was full of flowers.
8. The night of the visitation at the Funeral Home, we were stunned at the sheer numbers of people who turned up to pay their respects to my Dad and my family. The line stretched through three rooms at the funeral home, down a long hallway, out the front door and around the building. We spent 3 ½ hours talking to all the people who came through the line, current friends and very old friends, all the family members, acquaintances from the town, every neighbor who has lived on our road in our lifetime. The people came from the dialysis unit where my Dad spent so much of his summer. Many of the people from the local ambulance crew who had saved his life so many times came, and we thanked them for the extra time they gave him to be with us. A lot of widows from our small town, women whom my Mom has known all her life, made a point to tell her that she is now a part of their group and she will not be left to face anything alone. The local American Legion unit came, as well as the volunteer firemen, who came in a group and said some prayers. There were some people we have not seen in many years, who were there and who surprised us greatly. And I saw classmates from high school ~ some that I had not seen in 40 years. There was a lot of laughter and hugging that night.. At one point my Mom leaned over and said, “Is it okay to have a good time on such a night as this?” We agreed my Dad would approve.
9. This may be a small thing, but all my Dad’s grandchildren (except Liberal Texan who just could not make it there because of the baby and other reasons) were there and they spent a very wonderful 4 days together. They have always been close but don’t see each other a lot because of distances they all live from each other. My son was there from Missouri, my nephew from New York City, my niece from Utah, as well as the two who live there locally. It was important for all of them to be together during those days, and the four male grandchildren served as pallbearers.
10. All of us were so blessed by all the outpouring from friends ~ cards, phone calls, flowers, food. Our family had never been through a death in the immediate family, and knowing you are loved really gets you through the grief.
11. The day of the funeral was perfect in almost every way(except for the absence of Liberal Texan and family): the packed funeral home, the eulogies by the lay minister, my nephew and my uncle. The hard part came at the end of the service, when we had to say our final goodbyes to my Dad before they closed the casket. My nephew Tim had a flask of Hennessy brandy that all the grandchildren and my brothers took a swig from before they put it in Dad’s pocket and the casket was closed. My Dad would have loved it!
12. The trip from the funeral home to the cemetery is only a couple of miles. We were escorted by a policeman on a motorcycle, and a fire truck from my parents volunteer fire department, lights flashing. The route took us past the fire hall, where the procession stopped, and a lone firemen came out of the building, stood at the edge of the street, and saluted as the entire procession passed. The fire truck blew its siren. My Mom cried a lot then.
13. It was a beautiful brilliantly sunny November day. When we arrived at the cemetery, the Legion Honor Guard was there waiting. There was a rifle salute, my brother’s good friend played Taps, some prayers were said, and two veterans from the Legion detachment folded the flag and presented it to my mother, “with our thanks to our brother Bernard from a grateful nation who honors his service to our country.” At that point, we lost it, of course.14. We returned to my Mom’s house and the house was full of friends and relatives all afternoon, and there was much more laughter than tears. I have a big, loud, raucus fun-loving family, and we all knew that we would get through the sad part, and then our lives would go on, and that is exactly what my Dad would have wanted.
14. I returned to Kansas on Thursday, it was a long tiring trip. I did it alone; Mr. Tow had to go from NY to Kentucky where he will be on a project for a few days. Yesterday I was really down, sad, feeling lonely, when a UPS deliveryman came with a box of flowers….from SCOUTGAL! I stood there and cried. The bouquet even contains sunflowers. I look at them and they make me feel so surrounded by love.
Thank you all for your wonderful welcome back, and reminding me that I am never alone. I love you all!
~Sharon
