Funeral Day Wed. August 10th

I am adding the pictures now....with plans to write more about the day later.

I bought myself a dress for this day - my first since our wedding! (yeah...it was probably time..)I also wore a piece of jewelry that David bought for me the day before.  It was an opal, significant because now we see through a mirror but one day we will see clearly.  It also had the eternity symbol.  I love it! Thank-you David!

Both kids helped us with the Tribute part.  They told us their name, who they were in relation to Rachel (big sister etc..) and what they liked to do with Rachel. Abigail liked to play with Rachel.  Ethan talked about a time when he set up a ramp to do 'monster truck' jumps.  In his words "Rachel laughed and laughed." 

The kids and ourselves, along with Rachel's respite workers put these toys on the casket at the start of the funeral.  These were Rachel's favorites.  The blanket is the one I knitted for her - thinking she might die in it shortly after she was born.  We didn't use it often, saving it for special occasions.  But which blanket do you think she died wrapped up in???? This very one!! I'm really not even sure how she ended up having this one at the end but she did.  I like that it happened this way. She was wrapped up in something I made for her - loved by us from day one until the day that her life came to completion.

Dave and I doing the rest of the Tribute.  You can see two stuffed toy sheep on the stand in front of us.  These were given by our Pastor to the kids during the Meditation part. A reminder to them that when Rachel died, she went from our arms into the arms of the Good Shepherd.  



We loved the music.  We sang the songs "Jesus loves me", "It is well with my soul", and "Everlasting God." Our friends performed the songs "In feast and Fallow" by Sandra McCracken and "God is in Control" by Steven Curtis Chapman.  Thank-you to everyone who was involved in this! The service was very meaningful for us.