Funeral Plans

My dad had expressed his desire to be buried next to my mom in Amarillo, Texas.  That was great but it did add a few layers of complexity to the whole experience.  Dad's body could not be transferred to Texas until certain paperwork including the death certificate was prepared.  The date for the funeral was set for Thursday, October 6 which made it just over two weeks after his death.

It was an odd time.  People kept expecting us to be gone, but we were still here and needed to keep serving--our missionary assignments just didn't stop.  Typically, you are gathering as a family close after a death, but that was going to happen in a couple of weeks.  It was just a weird time.

I spent a lot of time on the phone--with my siblings, and with other people in Amarillo and here in Salt Lake making the needed decisions and arrangements. There were still things to be decided and discussed.  It was not uncommon that I would have 10-30 texts messages when I got out of a mission meeting of an hour or so.  Lots to talk about, lots to remember together!

I bought new temple clothes since Dad had lost weight over the past few months.

I picked a paisley tie.....

I don't think my dad would have picked it as it was a bit shiny but my mom loved the paisley pattern and she would love it!

In talking with the cemetery, they sent a photo of mom's marker as we began making the design for dad's.  Dad has already told me what he wanted so that part was easy.

We had hoped to remove mom's marker and make a combined headstone for both of them but the options were restricted in that area and it didn't make sense to do any of their other options for that site so we stayed with my dad's original plan.

Here is the draft for his grave marker.

It is hard to read on my mom's but it says: "She wore out two hearts for us."  a reference to her heart transplant in 1985.

And so our days went......each decision first went passed Karla, then was sent to my seven siblings, and then back to Karla and then shared to the important party----busy times with lots to do!  Gary was amazing through all of this chaos as well.