The Week of the Funeral

I was called out on a three day trip by the very person from crew support that assisted me in changing my emergency days to bereavement days. The third day of the trip was sitting reserve in Fresno. Called and begged crew support to let me sit the last day in LAX. Most of the conversation the guy thought I was a flight attendant...they have different rules. Finally convinced him to consider it. He had me call the next day. I was able to work it out to be back home by Tuesday night.

Natalie and Chelsea were already in town helping Dennis make arrangements. Brandon had some short days at work. He spent some time each day working on a frame with a picture of he and his mom when he was young etched on glass to put in the casket. My mom and dad came into town to help support us. When all the arrangements for the funeral were done we started going through some of Kemy's stuff. We knew that it had to be done and that it would be easier to go through some things while everyone was together. I wish we would have accomplished more.

It was a really weird week, very surreal. It was particularly hard to help prepare her for the viewing. I couldn't handle it. We had so many people bring by food (including dinner), cards, flowers etc. There was a great out pouring of love.

The viewing was early on Saturday the 11th of July. We had set out a lot of pictures, artwork, baby blessing dresses, quilts, etc. I mostly watched the kids in the nursery during the viewing.

The funeral went as well as a funeral can go. The whole chapel and the over flow were full. The opening song was "Each Life That Touches Ours For Good", Chelsea said the Invocation, Becky Green did the Eulogy, Melissa and Mindy sang "Only You Can Love Me This Way", their old home teacher David Belnap spoke, then all the in-laws sang a primary medley (whose idea was that...I cried the entire last song), their current home teacher Bob Peterson spoke. The closing song was "Families Can Be Together Forever", and Natalie said the closing prayer.

At the cemetery Brandon dedicated the grave. He did a beautiful job.