Etched In Memory

 September 23, 2011

(and the night before)

will 

forever remain 

etched

in 

my memory.

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                                   What I have written in years past:

(and, if you make it to the end, there's a couple of current 2023 photos of my children)

                                                               *******************

Friday, September 23, 2022

September 23rd

 

Today is September 23, 2022,

11 years since the day of Rob's funeral.

Luke got home from college early today and 

my sons are hanging out together right now in our living room.

Enjoying being in each other's company.

Enjoying life.

And I'm enjoying listening to them!

11 years ago today, they were together at their daddy's grave.

It's a memory I will never forget.

Our four children have gone through a lot in 11 years.

They're not the only ones in the world to have experienced loss

but they're the four that I've watched go through it

and live with it.

And I still hate that they had to lose their daddy

and have to live without him daily.

There is nothing harder than watching your children in pain.

They clung to each other from the beginning

and they still do.

I am thankful they have had each other and

I am thankful that they are as good as they are.

And I am thankful that they will always know that 

their daddy loved them beyond measure!

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Here is what I wrote about them last year 

and then what I have written in previous years if you'd like to read those posts. 

Thursday, September 23, 2021

Children's Time At Rob's Funeral

Ten years ago was my Rob’s funeral.

 

I’ve written a lot about my feelings that day

and I will repost that with this

but what broke my heart the most that day

was watching our children.

 

It is what still,

to this day,

breaks my heart the most.

 

We had a “Children’s Time” at Rob’s funeral.

 

Leading Children’s Time

was one of Rob’s favorite parts of the worship service.

He loved telling the children about Jesus.

He had a collection of puppets

and he could mimic any voice he ever heard.

He also played guitar

and knew lots of silly songs.

All of this made for wonderful moments

with the children at our churches.

 

So, in memory of that,

we had Children’s Time at his funeral.

 

Our 4 children,

one of them grown,

one of them at age 15,

one of them at age 11,

one of them at age 8,

all stood together at the pulpit,

right over their daddy’s casket,

and took turns reading a book titled

“I Love You Because You’re You.”

 

Which is exactly what I wanted

them to “hear”

their daddy saying to them

in this special Children’s Time.

 

It was so true.

Rob loved his children

no matter what.

 

I will never forget that Children’s Time

I watched our children being so open to being brave

by reading at their daddy’s funeral

yet being so open to tears of the raw emotion

of missing their daddy.

It all pointed to the love felt

between a father and his children.

 

I was proud of them that day.

Rob would have been proud of them that day.

 

But even more,

I am proud of them for living the last 10 years

and not collapsing under the weight of

being without their daddy.

For it is a heavy burden to bear

and to carry with you through life.

 

Each one of them

has his or her own mourning and grief story.

And none of those are my stories to tell.

 

But I can and will say that they have all managed

to carry their father’s death and not having him here

without letting it cripple their presents or their futures.

 

And he would be so happy to know that,

as heavy as it’s been for them at times,

there has also been great joy

in each one of their lives.

 

Ten years is a long time.

 

A lot of life is lived in 10 years.

 

And they have all been living

and growing

and missing

and loving

and joying

and moving forward

(not moving ON

– there’s a huge difference between moving ON

and moving FORWARD).

 

I am proud of all 4 of them.

They are all great human beings.

I am blessed to have every single one of them in my world.

I am so blessed that I get to parent them all.

 

It still breaks my heart that they don’t have their daddy.

And that they don’t get to hear him say,

“I love you because you’re you.”

 

But I know their hearts still feel it.

 

For that,

I am so very thankful. 

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Here are posts from past years:

Wednesday, September 23, 2020

9 Years Ago Today

 9 years ago today.

One part of what follows was written last year

and the other part was written 6 years ago.

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Monday, September 23, 2019

8 Years Today

On September 23, 2011,

8 years ago today,

we were at my Rob's funeral.

The photo below is one I took and it still breaks my heart.

I knew that day what my children had lost.

I also knew they didn't really know yet.

And that made me so sad.

Which is why, 

when I saw Luke keep putting his hand on the casket, 

I had to capture the moment.

Not to remind us of the sadness

but to remind us of the closeness 

of a boy and his dad.

We've all learned so much since that day.

About life, about death, and about how we

each have carried that knowledge 

with us into our "presents" and 

how it all has shaped our "futures."

God has been right there with us 

every step of the way.

I am blessed.

I am thankful.

The following is a post I wrote about the visitation and the funeral.

It was originally a birthday thank you note to Jeremy,

who my children dubbed "the funeral home man."

I hope it will provide some inspiration to someone that, 

no matter what the situation,

God is present 

and actively using those around you 

to help get you through it.  

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(WHAT FOLLOWS WAS WRITTEN IN JULY 2014 

- 7 YEARS AND 2 MONTHS AGO.)

Friday, July 18, 2014

Jeremy

(Warning - I have included casket photos in this post but I covered 
Rob's face in the photos for those who read my blog 
but do not want to see Rob in his casket).

Thursday, July 17, 2014

(well, it’s way after midnight now so I guess it’s Friday, July 18, 2014)

Dear Jeremy, I’m late for your birthday, not because I didn’t know it was your birthday (I saw it on your FB page) but because it has taken me 5 days to sit down and write this.  Every time I tried before, I just didn’t have the emotional energy to “go there.”  And even though I have told you in private, I want to take this opportunity to tell you in public how much your actions at the time of my Rob’s death meant to me and my children.

I didn’t even know you until my husband died in September 2011 and I used the funeral home where you worked at the time to care for my Rob’s body.  I do remember seeing you at my Grandma Caviness’ funeral in 2009 (I pretty much always notice people who are taller than me) but I do not remember talking to you then.  In fact, my grandma’s funeral was the one and only time you ever met my husband while he was living.  Rob and my dad officiated at her funeral so you and he “worked together” once.

So the first time I ever remember talking to you was when I walked into the funeral home to make the arrangements for my Rob’s visitation and his funeral.

There are many different people in this world with many different jobs
but a funeral home job has to be one of the hardest.
Funeral home workers meet folks when they are in so much pain and probably in some state of shock but still having to function to make decisions that are permanent and costly.
Nothing prepares a person for that.

Now I know that you were doing your job.  But there are some people who “just” do their jobs; there are some people who do their jobs at a “less than” status; and there are some people who do their jobs at a “greater than” status.  From the very first moment I walked into the funeral home, you and everyone there most definitely did your jobs much “greater than” you had to.

While my sister, my oldest daughter (Crystol), and I were there, you guided me through the process of filling out Rob’s death certificate, the protocol for writing his obituary and taking the names of the newspapers where I knew Rob wanted it published,
going over the costs, and choosing a vault and a coffin.
And as I was doing all that needed to be done, 

I was ever so aware that,
as I sat there going through all of the details,
my Rob’s body was somewhere in that funeral home 

and he was really dead.
For me, it was a living nightmare.  

But we made it through it.

At that time, it had been over 24 hours since I had seen my Rob
and I knew that very shortly, he would be in the ground.
I just couldn’t stand to be in the same building with his body and not see him.

So, even though I knew it was somewhat out of order, I asked you if I could see him.  Your kind response was that it really isn’t customary to let the family see the deceased before they’re dressed and ready.  Much to my amazement, my sense of humor surfaced for my answer to that one and it made you (along with my laughter) laugh a full laugh when I said,

“Jeremy, I have children with this man.  I’ve seen him undressed before.”

Describing what I felt in the moment
that I walked into the back room and saw my Rob’s body 
is a difficult task but it was, 
for me, 
the 
most 
defining
 moment 
in the entire after death process.

The grim reality that my husband and the father of my children was lying there dead took my breath away and caused grief to wash over me like a hurricane wave washes over the sea shore.

But seeing him lying there - - -
with only a plain, white sheet covering him and pulled up to his chin,
accentuating his exquisite yet rugged profile...

(this profile – photo taken while we were at the beach - May 2011)

...with his jutted out chin,
small bump in his nose that I had traced over so many times over the years with my finger,
his bushy eyebrows that just never would stay in place,
and his dark hair
in such stark contrast to the very white sheet - - -
well, the simplicity of that sight
simultaneously
gave me a sense of serenity that I’d never known could exist.

No bulky casket,

no fancy suit,

- just him.

Just my Rob.

What I saw in that moment was my Rob looking so peaceful
and if there can be such a thing as a favorite memory of him
from those
awful,
awful,
awful days,
THAT moment is it.

His color was still good.
He looked so natural just lying there.
My Rob was a handsome man, in life and in death.
After catching my breath and while crying and laughing at the same time,
I looked over at Crystol and one of us said

“He’s the most handsome dead man I’ve ever seen.”

I heard you laugh with us.

I wish I had taken photos, not to share with others, but just for me so that I could visually be reminded of that moment of serenity I was given
but I had left my camera in the front room and I didn’t walk back to get it.

I regret that.

But I thank you for allowing me to go back to that room to begin with
so that the moment could happen at all.

And I thank you for cutting some of his chest hair for me to take home with me.  I know that request was a strange one but I spent so much time snuggled up to his hairy chest and in that moment, having some of that chest hair to keep was the closest I was going to get.  I slept with that envelope (and the one from the hairdresser who had also cut some of his hair for me)
very close to me for a while.

I would like to thank you, and the others, for allowing my children and me to stay at the funeral home well beyond the ending time for the visitation.  My children especially needed that time so they could really start to process what was happening.

It was heart-wrenching for all of us.

We all cried 
and
said our goodbyes...

...and I thought we were all ready to leave
but my Luke
said he couldn’t leave yet

so I thank you and the others
for letting my then 8 year old son decide when to leave.

  I knew it was in the best interest for his emotional healing and future well-being
for him to not feel forced to leave the daddy he loved so much. 

I also felt that it was the very first step in his healing for HIM to decide when to separate from his dad’s side since he had absolutely no control over anything else that was happening.

He was SO torn about leaving his daddy that night.

(Luke asked me to take this photo of him and his dad even though he couldn’t stop crying.  
He told me he wanted to remember being with him that night. 
The original photo has Rob in it too - this is cropped for the blog).

Luke knew that it was the last time he would see his dad
and he just kept saying he couldn’t leave. 

He cried and cried
and his tears fell on his daddy.

I held him and he cried some more.

Then he pulled out his legos that I didn’t even know he had brought with him
and ran them up and down his daddy’s chest and arms…
he said he was
“playing with my daddy one last time.”

I had to turn away because I was inwardly sobbing by this point.

I then gathered my composure and took photos for I felt that Luke might
want to see them later on in his life since I didn’t know how
much his then 8 year old memory would hold.

As Luke’s tears fell on his daddy’s face, they made the
face make-up run down onto his shirt collar and his suit.
I didn’t mention it to you that night but the next day, you came up to me and
apologized for the make-up smears that you could not figure out how had gotten there.
After I told you how they got there, you smiled at the sweet sadness of it all.
So thank you for caring about the appearance of Rob’s shirt and suit
but I assured you then that I didn’t care at all about the smears because to me,
they represented the last moments my Luke had with his daddy.

Next, I would like to thank you for accommodating my wishes to
go to the graveside after the funeral
even in the downpour of driving rain.

You had to do your job and ask me if I would prefer to stay inside for the committal but,
as I had told you the day before,
I not only was going to go to the graveside (even in the rain) 
but my children and I also wanted to stay there
throughout the entire burial process.

After all, as pastor’s children, they had seen the burial process many times before.
They quickly agreed that they wanted to be there for their father’s burial.

It was fine with me if everyone else stayed inside
(and I had made sure to have that announced)
but I knew that I needed to see my husband’s body go into the ground and be covered. 
And all 4 of our children had told me that they wanted to be there too.

I needed to see the finality of it all

and, after talking with my children, I felt they needed to see the process to completion as well.

And the rain – well, that was just a sign from God.  

You see, it rained on all of Rob’s and my important days.
Torrential downpour on our wedding day;
Hurricane Fran when Anna was born;
horrible hailstorm when Wesley was born;
and a terrible ice storm when Luke was born.
It rained and rained and rained on important days.
We just started saying that for us,
the rainy days were the good days.
Although I will never call the day I buried my husband a good day,
it was comforting to me that it rained.
It just seemed fitting and right.

So thank you for grabbing the big umbrella and walking us down to the graveside.

A few days later, there was a knock on my parsonage door.  I was surprised to see you standing there.  It ended up being another one of those moments that took my breath away because you see, you were there to give me my copies of Rob’s death certificates

(those awful pieces of paper that made it official and legal that my Rob was dead).

You didn’t have to do that.  You could have gotten the required copies for the funeral home and gone straight back home but to save me the trip (I still lived in another town then), you found our parsonage and brought them to me.

Such a small thing… that meant so much.

So many folks came together at the time of Rob’s dying and death to form exactly what my children and I needed during those horrific days and, on your birthday (or at least in your birthday week), I just want to tell you publicly how much your part in it all meant to me.

Thank you for all you did to help us make our transition to life without Rob.

It mattered then and it matters now.

You were a blessing to all of us.

And tonight, as I finish writing this after just coming home from watching my kids participate and lead in the 2014 Vacation Bible School program at our church,

I feel blessed as well.

Because, even though there are so many times
when I feel so inadequate to parent my children alone,
 they sure have turned out to be some really great kids!

And because, as hard as it was to learn to live without Rob,
God has taken care of us
and He used you to be a big part of those
very first days of the journey of living into our future.

Thank you for letting Him use you for us.

Happy Late Birthday!

And you still owe me a CD!

Love to you and your boys,

Janna

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(THE ABOVE WAS WRITTEN IN JULY 2014 

- 8 YEARS AND 2 MONTHS AGO.)

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My children in September 2021

They are awesome kids! 

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My children in May 2023

My children in September 2023