Planning a funeral

 I am up late, watching the reruns of the local news. Oddly enough the funeral homes seem to use this time to advertise their products and services. I wonder if their advertising really pays off. We all die true enough, but do people choose what funeral home to use because they saw them on television? This is an interesting thought.

From what we have walked through death is such a personal thing. How we remember our loved ones and how we choose to commemorate their lives is so very individual. Being a funeral director is just one of many hard jobs that touched our lives the last two years. Another difficult jobs would be the Doctor that must give the ‘bad news’ whether it be “Your child has cancer” or “I’m sorry it looks like she will die”. Then include the nurses that daily took care of Millie yet could not change the details of her diagnosis. Each of these people had a major impact on our lives walking through our deepest valley of grief beside us.

You might wonder how we chose who would be in charge of Millie’s final preparations? That story was 23 years and multiple friends in the making. Long ago, a dear friend of mine had 4 precious children with the youngest little girl being just two months younger than our second born son. When her baby turned 3 months old, she tragically passed away from SIDS. During the baby’s funeral service, our (single) Children’s Director from our church helped the (single) funeral director take care of the dressing the baby for the burial. Our Children’s director had once commented that she would never marry unless God walked him in the door of the church—he did, and they were married sometime afterwards.

Fast forward a few years to my grandfather passing away, when we arrived at the funeral home the same director now worked for this home. Needing his services has found him doing both my grandmothers, a friend, my uncle, and many more funerals. This is not a small town with only one director, instead this is a director that truly cares for you like family.

When we understood that Millie would not live and that we needed to make plans—we called our longtime friend, the funeral director. Spanning 24 years, his job has changed some. He no longer does funerals himself, instead he serves as the director of multiple homes across the state. Even so, he still came to help us plan Millie’s funeral. When he arrived at the house that night, she wanted Mama to hold her. That is the most surreal feeling to plan your child’s funeral while holding that living child in your lap. We worked and planned with the thought that everything needed to point toward the goodness of God, even in the hard times. Every song, scripture, photo, and thought were all to convey that we trusted Jesus to walk through this valley with us.

His wife, my friend, came and took Millie’s special items and used each one to decorate her service like a beautiful party for a tiny little girl. It was in many ways her BIRTHDAY celebration—the day she was born into heaven. Her Heaven Day as I now call it. So many precious friends turned out to help make the day calm and peaceful, beautiful even in the sorrow, celebratory even in the grief. For a funeral it turned out as good as I could have hoped. All due to the many behind the scenes workers who tirelessly work to pull it together. Hand in hand our homeschool group and our church family made a delicious meal for the family to gather before the service. The hands and feet of Christ ministered to us in ways we could never imagine.

I often pause beside Millie’s large photos that were displayed during the service, raise my hand to her almost life-size face and say, “ah Millie girl, your mama sure does miss you!” It is still so hard to wrap my head around all the holes left in our life when Millie went to heaven. We still have love, but it is stretched all the way to heaven. We still have our faith, which has solidified with trusting in Christ in a much more personal way. We still have a vision and a purpose but now it is to minister to others that are hurting. Millie leaving changed us, it showed us we can live through the hard times…we can make it through with Jesus.

Blessings sweet friends…

｡･:*:･ﾟ★,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆　｡･:*:･ﾟ★｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

I still believe in Millie’s Miracle

｡･:*:･ﾟ☆ Hebrews 11:1 ｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

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