Two days after my daughter Jennifer passed away, we had to go to the mortuary to plan her memorial service. My Mom and Dad met us there, to help us with the decisions that we had to make. On the night my daughter died, my Dad told us that we weren't to worry about the cost of her memorial, they were going to pay for all of it, it was their gift to her.
We sat down and told them what we wanted. One evening several years ago we had been talking about how each of us wanted to be buried when the time came, my husband and I told her that we wanted to be cremated and she said that's what she wanted also. We never expected that we would be doing this for her. No, it should have been the other way around, her sitting there planning our services when we were much older and it was our time to go. This all felt so backwards. So here we are, picking out the memorial cards, selecting the poem to go on the cards. We had brought a photo of her, it was our favorite one and they scanned it so it would be on the cards. Then we picked out an urn, my husband and I immediately picked out the same one. It was almost the exact color of her eyes. It was simple yet beautiful, just like her. We also selected two tear drop pendents that some of her ashes would be put in. They told us that they had a minister that they used for the services and he would contact us for what we wanted to be said about her at the services. We selected the day for her services, December 14th, 2012 so that my husband Mom and sister could make arrangements to fly here as they live back east. The only other thing we had arranged was a viewing of sorts, it would be only my husband, me and my parents. This was so we could see her one last time, in her own cloths, not looking as she had in the hospital. I would go home and try and decide what we wanted to see her in. The hardest thing I would have to do was to go into her room that I had not been in since that night she died, and pick out the cloths for the viewing.
On Wednesday, December 12th we went to the mortuary to see our daughter for the last time. We were taken to a viewing room and there she was...dressed in the clothes I had picked out, laying there. My heart feels like it is being ripped out of my chest, my child is right there, I can touch her and stroke her hair and kiss her, but she is gone. She looks like she is asleep, but feels so cold when I touch her. This can't really be happening! This has to be some kind of nightmare, and God please let it be just that, a nightmare.
We spent about a half an hour with her, just my husband I, and my parents came in for a few minutes to say their goodbyes, and then we had to go. I had to leave my child, knowing I would never see her again until I died.
At her services we had the pastor read two letters she had written, one was one she had written and given me on Mothers Day, and the other was one she had written and given to my husband for Fathers Day. My sister in law did the eulogy and had made a slideshow of pictures of Jennifer from when she was a baby through the years as she grew up. It was a simple service, and I think she would have liked it.
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