The next day (Thursday), we met with the family ministries pastor and the childrens' ministry director from our church who were teaming up to officiate Gracie's funeral service. They came and met us in our home and we spent about an hour and a half talking, crying, laughing, and hashing out a master plan to honor our sweet girl's life. We had been scheduled to meet with the pastoral care director that following Sunday to do some funeral pre-planning, but obviously we needed to meet sooner and he was on vacation with his family. I think it worked out perfectly that the people who ended up officiating the ceremony were both women, both moms. I think we really benefited from having a "mother's touch" in all of this. In the conversations I'd had on the phone with the pastoral care guy, I really didn't feel a connection - it was sort of awkward. I think it worked out as it was supposed to :)
That evening, Ben was feeling very unsettled about what was going on with Gracie, whether she had been disturbed at all, who would be placing her in her casket and how we'd know for sure that she was laid in there the way we wanted her to be, snuggled and comfortable. I shot an e-mail to our incredible funeral director who called Ben from home on his own time to discuss all of this with him. The end result was that we decided to make a visit to the funeral home the next day. We had decided long before she passed away that we didn't want to see her body after the hospital. We weren't having her embalmed, and we didn't want to have any disturbing final images of her in our minds, so we had decided we wouldn't go to the funeral home at all. Scott did say that he would not advise us to view her again, but he wouldn't ever tell us "no" either - that it was up to us and what we felt we needed to do. We still didn't want to see her body again, necessarily, but when the time came Ben felt strongly that as her father, he needed to go and make sure she was ok. He needed to be there when the casket was sealed. I wasn't sure whether I'd go in with him or not, but our brother-in-law volunteered to go along and be there for him. He would be the one to uncover her and check that her hat was on straight and her necklace was in place and everything was as it should be, so that Ben could be there and be sure of all of that without having to be burdened with any images of her that he didn't want to remember. This is by far the most special and intimate gift that anyone will ever give to us in this life... I will never stop thanking Josh for what he did for us that day. More on that later.
Knowing that we would be going to the funeral home the next day gave us the opportunity to add a few items to her casket, so we decided to print a photo of our family of four to be placed with her, and that we would each write her a letter. We put Eli to bed and sat at the dining room table with a box of tissues between us and two glasses of wine, and began to write. It was so hard to fit all that I wanted to tell her onto one sheet of lavender cardstock, but somehow I managed. I told her how loved she was, how much she would be missed, how badly I wished for more time with her, how badly I wished that things had ended differently, and I thanked her for all that she gave to us in her short time. And of course I cried a good bit. I just kept thinking how awful it was that I was writing this letter to be placed in her casket. How unfair it was that I couldn't keep her, and that I had to tell her all of this in a letter that she'd never actually get to read. Ben's letter was so beautiful... I have just been so blown away by him lately. His caring and protective love for our daughter is just awe-inspiring. But I digress... I plan to write an entire separate post about my incredible husband, so for now I'll move on.
The next morning (Friday), we had to go to the cemetery to sign some paperwork and select a headstone. My great grandparents were also buried at this cemetery, along with my infant aunt who passed away of SIDS at 9 months old, and there was one extra plot there that had been paid for in full and that no one was planning to use. My grandfather and great aunt were kind enough to gift this plot to us, so that Gracie would be buried with family and our costs would be dramatically reduced. We signed a bunch of papers - it almost felt like we were buying a car - and then hemmed and hawed over the headstone for a while until we settled on one. I had no idea how expensive those things are, by the way. Wow.
Next we headed to the funeral home where we'd be meeting Josh and our funeral director, Scott. I still wasn't sure that I wanted to go in... I wasn't sure that I wanted to be so close to her but unable to see her. Ultimately I decided that I'd at least go in and try to be there for my husband in whatever way I could, even if I wasn't going into the room where they'd be "doing" this. Scott went over a few funeral details with us and we discussed what we were about to do. He assured us that no one had touched her, and that she was exactly as we had left her. I don't know why it never occurred to me before this point, but Scott suggested that since we had wrapped her in such a big, fluffy blanket, there was plenty of extra to cover her. We could just keep her wrapped up with her face covered and we'd be able to hold her one last time without actually seeing her. A wave of relief came over me... I was going to get to hold my sweet girl one more time. I had no idea how much that meant to me until I was there that day.
Scott and Josh stepped out to go and prepare Gracie, and Josh then took us across the hall into what felt like a family room, warmly lit and nicely decorated, with couches at one end and a small table at the other which held her casket. And there was Scott, standing there cradling our baby in his arms, all wrapped in her fuzzy white blanket. She wasn't laid on a table like some kind of corpse - he was just smiling and holding her, like you'd do with any other baby. I'll never forget that image and how much that small gesture meant to me. He placed her gently in my arms, and my heart literally swelled in my chest. I hugged her so tightly, kissed the top of her hat that was just barely visible (about a million times, I think), and just held her for a few minutes. Feeling her weight in my arms again was exactly what I needed. Just one more snuggle. I'll always need "just one more snuggle", but what a gift it was. Ben held us both and we cried together, but we were mostly just happy - so happy to be together again. I handed her over to Ben so that he could have a few minutes with her as well. He whispered to her, hugged her tight, kissed her over and over, and when it was time, he laid her in her casket. He was SO relieved to have been able to be the one to do that. We carefully arranged the items that we had brought to place in her casket, including one of Eli's old loveys, a soft giraffe that we placed alongside her. When we were satisfied and had given her one last kiss each and whispered "sleep tight", we retreated to the other end of the room to sit on the couch and be there while Josh did his final "check" of her and helped Scott to seal the casket.
I can't tell you what it meant to us to be there for that - to place her in her final resting place, arrange her and her belongings just so, and know that she was snuggled comfortably before it was sealed. We'll never have questions or doubts. We know, because we were there. It may seem somewhat morbid to people outside of the situation, but we just had to be there. Honestly, it was Ben who had to be there. I didn't realize what it would mean to me until I was there, participating. I'll be forever grateful to my husband for his commitment to our daughter, which is what ultimately pushed me to be there for her too, when I wasn't sure that I could be. He was so strong for our baby girl, for our family. We left the funeral home that day feeling such peace. I am so grateful for Scott, who never once balked at a single request we made - he was just there to facilitate whatever we felt we needed to do, and he is a big part of the reason we were able to feel so peaceful throughout this process. He was there to fight for us when the cemetery tried to tell Ben that he couldn't lower her into her grave ("liability issues", they said). He was a godsend, is all I can say. We will forever highly recommend Ruck Funeral Home.
That evening, my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and niece brought us dinner and helped us to put together a few last-minute items for the funeral, including some beautiful 16x20 portraits for display. We put music onto the ipod for the service. At the very last minute, I texted my best childhood friend who graciously agreed to read a poem for us at the funeral. Just before bed, we sat down and wrote a eulogy together for our girl, that we would read the next morning. Once again I didn't think that I would be able to do it, but my husband insisted that we could do it together - we would trade off, take deep breaths, do whatever we had to do, but we would be the ones to tell her story. Once again, I'll never stop thanking him for pushing me to be brave for our baby girl. I can look back on all of it without a regret, thanks to him.
I'll leave you with the images that would be displayed the next day at Gracie's beautiful funeral service, and in my next post we'll pick up with a recap of the service, hopefully to include a video of the balloon release!
Photo courtesy of Ellen Cohn Photography for Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep
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