This has been a long day. From getting up early (actually me being up half the night), loading up the cars and traveling 5 hrs to Beaver, meeting with the funeral director, meeting with Keith, and whatever else we did, its all running together now. The girls wanted to ride in the van with Nana, so we let them. While Rob was driving, I was working on the pictures for the funeral director. I thought it would be hard to do it, not just emotionally, but would I even have 50 pictures? I didn't have too many older pictures, but I did have a few that I had scanned into my computer from when Daddy was around one or two yrs old. Most of the pictures were from the past 7-8 years. I wish I had remembered to bring some of my photo albums that had more pictures of him. Instead I had to rely on what I had on my computer. It wasn't as bad going through them.
Alot of memories of Daddy flooded back. Memories from when I was little, how Daddy was the first man I ever loved and when I was four or five, I wanted to marry him (or more a man like him). Memories of him always being there for everything. Memories from my wedding day, how when he told me not to cry when I started to cry, I stopped because he told me to be happy--btw they were happy tears. Memories from when Tessa was born. I called them at 3:30 am to tell them it was time. He said they would still be leaving in the morning. That caught me off guard because I thought he would have jumped out of bed & into the car right away. They did leave not long after I called, Mommy didn't want to wait!
One of my favorite pictures of him is when he is holding his first granddaughter in the hospital, you can see the look of love in his eyes as he looks down at my precious baby Tessa. He was so proud. After going through all of the pictures and deciding which ones to put on the CD, I was finally satisfied with my choices. I decided then that I wanted to have a table set up with other pictures of him so would have some of them printed and put them in an album to have at the funeral home.
I don't remember what time we made it to Beaver, but I was glad to be done traveling. Walking into the house for the first time felt strange. Everything was just like Daddy left it when he left to come to my house for Christmas. I won't talk about how messy it was (no joke!) Rob left right away to get his Mom from the airport. I tried to straighten some stuff up. When Rob got back, we went to the funeral home to make final funeral arrangements. The director was so kind. He talked us through everything. Its all so overwhelming, I don't remember it all. There is so much to think about & decide & figure out. Mark (funeral director) helped us with everything, answered all our questions and calmed our concerns. He was not worried about being paid, he put us first. He said more than once that it was about trust. He thanked us for trusting him with his services to us and in turn he trusted us to pay when we could as long as we communicated with him everything would work out.
After that meeting, the neighbors had us over for dinner. It was so thoughtful of them to have a meal ready for us after traveling all day & having so much to do & think about. They were even gracious enough to have Keith come over to meet with us to talk about the service. When Keith arrived he already had thoughts about what he would say, but asked us if there was anything in particular we wanted said. My first thought was to talk about the hope we have of eternal life with God when we die. He was thinking the same thing. We talked about hymns we wanted to sing. We each chose one of our favorites and included a couple we knew were Daddy's favorites. I did not know his favorite scripture. I wish I had. I had an idea but wasn't sure of the exact verse. I had asked Daddy a while ago if he had one and he described it to me, but even he couldn't remember the exact verse. He told me he would find it, but neither of us talked about it again. When I tried to tell Keith what it was about, he thought it was in John but we weren't sure if it was the exact one. I told him that I would ask Betty if she knew and get back to him. I also told him that I would like to speak at some point in the service and allow an opportunity for any one else that might like to say a few words. I know I didn't owe my Dad anything, but I felt like I owed him something for being the wonderful father and friend he was to me. It was my way of giving back to him.
So, after a long day of traveling, meetings, memories & emotions, I am exhausted.
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