(Continuation of journal entry from September 21st, that was originally written on September 10th)

The next morning the mortuary called Matt and we made an appointment to go in at 3:30pm, I believe. I was holding it together until we walked up to the front door and the thought hit me that we shouldn’t have to be doing this. After that thought, I struggled to keep it together.

Our funeral director was super young (younger than us). He took us down to a room where we discussed options. We didn’t know what to expect or what decisions we’d have to make so he gave us a lot of time to decide. We chose some flowers (purple and white) and discussed options for the funeral. We decided to just have a graveside service with immediate family. We wanted to keep it simple and close. We chose her headstone and that’s all I really remember.

We’re going back on Thursday (the 15th) to take her from where they have her to place her in her coffin. We’re planning on wrapping her up in her purple blanket and there will be a teddy bear in there as well. I think we decided to have programs printed off just so we can have something with her picture on it, but we’re only having an opening prayer and the dedicatory prayer and that’s probably it. It doesn’t seem like enough, but we don’t know what else to do. We also want to put something on her headstone, but haven’t decided what. So far it’ll just have her name, and birth/death date. So we’ll figure that out.

While we were at the hospital I was thinking of where we’d want her buried and the only place I could think of that didn’t seem extremely wrong was Avon. It’s always been one of my favorite places on Earth (specifically the cemetery) and I don’t know why. It’s always felt so calm and peaceful. I wasn’t sure how Matt would feel about it, but he actually wound up bringing it up before I did and said it felt right. I honestly wasn’t even sure if it was an option, so I texted my mom to see who I should contact to find out if we could purchase a plot and she told me there were some available and she thought they were $1000. She mentioned, however, that Grandma and Grandpa had some plots they purchased for family and wanted us to have one. So she’ll be buried up in the Avon Cemetery on Friday, September 16th at 11:00 am.

The plan is to have Matt be the one to carry her from the car to the grave site and my uncle Brad will be the one in charge of digging the hole, so he’ll let us be the ones to fill it in. I’m grateful we’re able to have her buried somewhere small and quite where family is close. We’re planning on purchasing plots if we can so we can be buried with her when the time comes. Any time we have left here seems like to long to have to wait.

We talked to the Bishop on Sunday to see if there is anything we need to do in regards to the church, and he said he’d let us know. We talked for a minute and he reminded us that we’ll get to have the opportunity to raise her still, but for now she has another work to do. That helped. She’s meant to be ours, but it’s clear there is a plan for her and that she’s still with us even though she isn’t here physically.

We weren’t planning on going to church, but felt like we should, and I’m glad we did. Oddly enough, the hymns helped. The first song we sang was “I believe in Christ” and it was good to just be able to sit and listen. We’re planning on going to the temple tomorrow, and I’ll be crying the whole time, but it will be good I think. I just want to feel that peace, which, oddly enough, I felt in the hospital room. It was after the mortuary had come and my nurse was leaving us alone to get some rest. Matt had fallen asleep on the couch and the room was bright and clean and I just had such a feeling of peace. I remember looking at Matt and thinking that even though we’d never be the same, we would be okay, and even though I wish he didn’t have to go through this, I was so glad we were going through it together because I will never love someone as much as I love him and Ellen. There is no one more important to me. I want to live my life in a way that I will be able to return to my family in Heaven, because I can’t imagine even a day without them, let alone eternity. Everything I cared about before seems so ridiculous now. My perspective has definitely changed.

Anyways, I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting a lot of stuff, but I think that’s basically caught up to now (September 21, 2022). I’ll write more about the Temple and stuff after I go. Physically I’ve been doing better than I expected. I’m almost not even bleeding anymore, but my milk came in. That hurt more than I expected it to, both physically and emotionally, but I think it’s already getting better…hopefully. We’ll see how things go over the next few days.