Busy, crying, laughing, busy, crying laughing.....

When someone close to you dies, life becomes very busy. Planning services, cleaning out apartments...laughing...crying...you get the picture.

My sister and I started this journey the very next day, Saturday May 3rd. We met at the funeral home where my Dad had "plans" made. We walked in and this lady, a short lady, in a very distinguished tweed suit and very sensible shoes asked if she could help us. We had told her that our Dad's body had been brought there. She asked if we had an appointment and I told her we had no clue what we were doing! Our first stop was to their "sales" room. As a blogger I wish I had my camera, but perhaps that might be a bit irreverent! Debbie and I got the giggles several times! We then met Chris Steward who is a funeral director???? Anyway, he was great..no high pressure sales as my Dad's wishes are quite simple.

We got the service set for Saturday, May 10th at 3PM at Mountain View Funeral Home in the Celebration of Life Building. My brother-in-law, Lenard, will be officiating the service.

On Sunday we both took the day off. Monday I headed back up to Tacoma. My sister has been staying in my Dad's apartment and I am too. Monday was spent writing our Dad's obituary. That was hard....we did some packing...crying..laughing...you get the idea. It's a cycle.

Grief has many faces. And all of them are ok. I want my kids to know that..we all handle grief in various ways and we go through the various stages at different times.

Tuesday, today, was spent mostly packing things up. We took a break to run a few errands and have dinner. We keep hearing from different people how much our Dad touched their lives. It's so good to hear that.

Tomorrow we will do some more work, but then we are both going home. We will be back up on Friday. We have a care conference for our Mom in the afternoon. My beautiful Mom is handling this as best she can. Yesterday she had a good cry with her favorite CNA, Tami. We are hoping that Tami will be able to come with Mom to the service to attend to any need she may have. We are including her in some of the service plans and she told Debbie thank you for including her.

The journey continues. Thanks for all your prayers!