We had decided to have a memorial service for Kaitlyn at our church, Hope Fellowship in Frisco, on Saturday at 1030. My parents stayed the night at the house with us on Friday, and when they got up in the morning they volunteered to go up to the church a little early to make sure everything was taken care of.
Alex and I were alone in the house for the first time since we came home from the hospital. The house was really quiet, and I immediately turned on the TV for some white noise. I asked Alex to move one of our bar stools into the bathroom for me so I could do my hair and makeup while sitting down so I didn't aggravate my c-section incision.
When I first realized I was pregnant, I shared it with one of our neighbor friends who lives two houses down named Kim. Kim and her sister (I don't even know her name, how bad is that?!) had given me all of their maternity clothes, plus some really great baby things that are still in the nursery waiting. Anyways, I had this nice black maternity dress that I had from them, and that's what I picked out to wear for the service. My dad had taken Alex to get some dress pants and a shirt on Friday since he had lost quite a bit of weight while he was away in Afghanistan.
We got ready, and we got in the car to head to the church. I think I cried the entire way there and I kept saying, "I really don't want to do this. I don't want to say good-bye to our daughter. I don't want to do this." But of course, my husband was the rock that he is and just held my hand and told me that everything was going to be ok.
We got to the church, and I just sat there. I looked at the place I had called my church home for the last five years, and really had to get up my courage to go inside. Alex came around and helped me out of the car, and I saw some work colleagues go by to go into the building.
One of my good friends from my previous job, Andy, got out of his car and headed towards us. Andy is a strong Christian, and was one of my favorite people to work with because of his sarcastic personality and his "big brother" treatment of me (which could be said of all the guys I worked with). Andy came up to me and gave me a big hug, and I immediately start crying again. Andy and his wife, Kim, had taken the time to make us a little book of their favorite verses from the Bible, and he gave it to us to put in the car before we went in the building.
There were a lot of people that showed up for us that day. As we entered the lobby of the church, there were probably somewhere between 30 and 40 people milling around the lobby talking to each other and waiting for us. Alex's Aunt Lucy and Uncle Paul came and hugged on us, and we found out later that they had actually had a similar situation with twins a long time ago. After we hugged on them, I just kept telling Alex that I needed to go hide, I wanted to get out of there at that moment. We were escorted back to the "green room", which is a little side room off the main auditorium where our worship band usually hangs out and waits to play between and during services. Pastor John's daughter, Macy, was back there waiting to sing at the beginning of the service, and we sat down as John came in to sit with us. My parents had followed us back, along with Alex's brother and sister-in-law and his mother.
Our angel, Kenney, came back to the green room to talk to us. I immediately start crying (again) when I see her, and she just comes and hugs on me and sits on the arm of the chair I was in. Kenney hugged on me and I asked to see one of the programs that she had made for us. It was absolutely beautiful, and it had a picture of Kaitlyn's footprints and hair on the front. I asked Kenney if she took care of my baby when she took her from the hospital, and my sweet angel told me that of course Nanana had taken care of baby Kaitlyn. Kenney had sung to her all the way out to the cremation site (mickey mouse), and she told me she loved on her the whole way there. I will forever, forever love this woman for caring so much for us when we were hurting so badly.
The service opened with Dana and Macy singing "God I look to you". They did an absolutely phenomenal job, and I have no idea how they had the strength to do it. Dana played the piano and Macy sung and played her guitar. I quietly sung along and cried as Alex and I held hands on the front row.
My Uncle Charley got up and said the opening prayer for the service. Uncle Charley and his wife, Sondra, had buried their baby girl Sheila when I was 8. Sheila had died of a brain tumor, and she was only two years old. My Aunt has been such a comfort to me in the days since Kaitlyn passed, even though I know our loss has only reminded them of the pain that they had more than 20 years ago.
Pastor John got up and gave maybe a 15 minute talk about the loss of a child, and things we can learn and appreciate from Kaitlyn's early passing. To be honest, I don't remember a lot of what he said, but I do remember him looking directly at Alex and I as he talked with compassion about everything that had happened.
The stage was completely filled with flowers, and I kept looking at the centerpiece we had picked out that was sitting at the front of the stage. It had Jenny's bunny, our "fraud" urn (a small purple one that was empty), and three candles that Kenney had put out for us. The two representing Alex and I are purple, and the one representing Kaitlyn is pink. The arrangement has plenty of green leaves, several hot pink roses, and pink and purple carnations. It was absolutely beautiful and fitting for our baby girl. When John was done talking, "Awakening" by Chris Tomlin started playing. I hadn't heard that song in a very long time (Alex had only played the intro for me when we were talking about having it played, which was more than fine with me), but I remembered the lyrics quickly and started singing along with them again as tears started rolling down my face. Then we got to the break in the music where the band starts playing pretty loudly, and I giggled to myself that we are probably the only parents on the planet that would request a song with such a ruckus in the middle played at our daughter's funeral. My grandparents were at the service, and they still go to a church with an organ as the main instrument, so I'd be shocked if they weren't somewhat surprised or offended by the choice of music that we had.
The service was absolutely perfect. It was our family, it represented who we were as Christians, and who we had dreamed that Kaitlyn would be as she walked through life. At the end, Alex and I went up to the centerpiece and I loved on the bunny that guarded the fraud urn. I actually knocked that urn over and muttered to Alex that I was really glad she wasn't in there otherwise I would have lost it completely (those of you who know me personally will think that's hilarious because I'm such a klutz sometimes). The two of us bent over and blew out the pink candle, representing our sweet Kaitlyn's life, and made our exit to the back of the church.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.