In preparation for the funeral, Jeff was asked to prepare a memory of Grandma Kay to share. I was asked to play the piano for the funeral. Grandma Kay had picked out two songs that she wanted sung at her funeral, and they were not your average funeral hymns: Have I Done Any Good? and Count Your Blessings. I was asked to play the piano on Monday, four days before the funeral. I had never actually played Have I Done Any Good, so I reminded them of my low-level skills and agreed to do my best. Enter my old friend, piano practice mania! I cranked through three practice sessions per day, averaging around an hour-plus of practice per day, for three days. That's all the time I had; we were in the car all day on Thursday and the funeral was Friday. With much difficulty, I managed to learn that fiddly finicky hymn. Thankfully the other song was one I know well! After conferring with experienced individuals, I paged through my hymnbook and marked a dozen or so reverent funeral-worthy hymns to play for prelude.
The morning of the funeral, I was told that the great-grandkids would be singing Families Can Be Together Forever and they needed me to accompany them. SAY WHAT!? Another song added to my load mere hours before go-time!? I got to know the Children's Songbook version of that song during my primary pianist days, but I didn't have a Children's Songbook and it had still been over a year since I had played that song. I did my best to keep calm. It was not easy. Thankfully someone made a copy of the Children's Songbook version and brought it to the funeral. Leslie handed it to me about a third of the way through the service and I air-practiced it, hovering my fingers silently over the piano keys while the funeral service continued.
The service began with a viewing midday on Friday. Grandma Kay was the most beautiful peaceful sight--resting peacefully. I peeked at her, delegated Amber-duty to Grampa Dan (Jeff was a pall bearer), and then slipped into the adjacent chapel-type room of the funeral home, where the actual memorial service would be held, to work out my nerves by playing piano prelude for half an hour. It helped immensely to get to know the piano before the big moment. I worked out some kinks and calmed my shaky fingers during that half hour of peaceful prelude. During that time I also felt a wave of thick peaceful calm enter my heart. Music is powerful. Providing that peaceful background sound while people slowly filed in to the funeral showed me another beautiful diamond facet of giving the gift of music.
I don't want to make this funeral post all about me, so suffice it to say that playing the piano at a funeral is just as nerve-wracking as playing in church, possibly more so because musical mistakes at a funeral feel doubly disrespectful somehow--disrespectful to both God and the deceased. No pressure! Aside from that wave of peace that hit me during prelude, two things saved me:
- A veritable wall of flower arrangements almost completely blocked my view of the 80 or so funeral attendees. It was like playing piano in a fragrant jungle! I felt safe behind my floral fortress.
- My piano-playing secret weapon: desperate prayers born of terror, humility, and dread.
I made mistakes. But I recovered from them and kept playing. That's all any of us can do.
During the funeral, several of the grandchildren got up and shared memories of their Grandma Kay. Jeff's memory was of a time that Grandma Kay sang karaoke rendition of "these boots were made for walking" and how she shed her prim-and-proper side and sang her heart out. It was special to hear the wide variety of memories that were shared. It is a strangely lonely feeling to attend thee funeral of a person I barely knew, but those memories gave me a glimpse into who Grandma Kay is and what she meant to her family. The great grandkids sang one verse of Families Can Be Together Forever. I didn't know if they were planning on singing the second verse, and I couldn't see the chorister at all through the flower-forest. It made for an awkward few notes/pause routine at the end, but eventually I just stopped and the kids sat down. One verse won out!
After the funeral service, we went to the graveside dedication and then drove to a church building for a late lunch/early dinner provided by the relief society. We stayed and talked with Jeff's cousins for close to two hours! Having discovered that my own grandma's retirement home was only ten minutes from the church building where we were, I called her and asked if we could visit her on our way back to our hotel. She was happy to give us 20 minutes of her evening last minute. I tried not to feel too much "survivor's guilt" when we left Jeff's grandma's funeral to visit my living grandma. I hugged her extra tight.
Even though the funeral itself was a solemn occasion, we did our best to make the rest of the trip fun for the kids. We stayed in a Holiday Inn Express with a very fun pool and swam three times during our short 1 day/2 night stay. We ate out at a buffet restaurant (their favorite kind). We let them stay up late watching TV in the hotel bed. Traveling gets easier and easier the older our kids get! Of course there were cranky moments and wild moments and fights among the kids, but in general the trip went quite smoothly. We listened to Ramona Quimby and Harry Potter books in the car. We didn't run into any bad weather or icy roads in the mountain passes. We were all very glad to get out of the car and sleep in our own beds when we pulled into our garage at 5:30pm on Saturday evening.
Even though it was a tiring trip, we were glad to gather and remember Grandma Kay. Amber's middle name is Kay for a reason!
The last time we saw Grandma Kay in person was two years ago when we were in Utah for my cousin's wedding.
Here's the first time Jay met Grandma Kay, nearly eleven years ago.
Roadtrip nectar! Shaina-version: Chick-fil-a lemonade. Jeff-version: Coke or Dr. Pepper.
Our hotel in West Valley City, UT was right next to Decker Lake, which had a convenient 1.2 mile pathway circling it. As Jeff said, it was a perfectly adequate running trail. We agreed it was definitely preferable to stop-and-go city block running.
Lonnnng legs made longer in the slanted afternoon sunshine. Jeff and I both went running right when we checked into our hotel. Nothing like a nice four mile shake-out after a long day in the car!
Right after our run, we took the kids to the hotel pool.
Jeff had them doing contests to see who could glide underwater the farthest without taking a breath. Jeff won. I sat on the sidelines and watched.
Best dad award goes to Jeff! Hotel pools are so chemical-dense, but he got in anyways.
A dip in the hot tub before heading out.
Thursday night buffet dinner! Jay really wanted to go to Chuck-a-rama, but there was a Golden Corral much closer to our hotel, so we downgraded slightly and went to GC. It reminded me of driving home from indoor track meets in college. I hope it's another decade before I go back, haha. It is exceedingly difficult to eat dairy free at Golden Corral.
Living the hotel life before heading out to the funeral on Saturday. On Saturday morning, we had the classic Holiday Inn Express breakfast, let the kids swim, went running, and then drove to the funeral home.
Jeff and his family at the grave. I had zero clue about funeral photography etiquette, so I took zero pictures. Steph and Sam (Jeff's siblings gave me the two they took from the funeral). The Bountiful, Utah cemetery is in a beautiful location.
We thought we got a picture of our entire White family, but 2-year-old Cole had run off so we were one cousin short, haha. These folks are ridiculously photo averse and before Friday, it had been nearly five years since we took a full family photo. We almost managed it at the grave, but not quite.
The kids with their great Grama Brown. She is blind. Jay and Rose were careful to explain things to her, but Amber kept doing tricks and holding up hands and showing her things, and poor Grama kept telling her that she couldn't see. Amber did not understand because Grama was LOOKING at her! Jay and Rose are almost as tall as she is now!
When your grama is 91, you take pictures every time you see her. My hair fell onto her face and tickled her, and we were laughing about it when Jeff took this picture. I think it may be my favorite picture of my Grama Brown, ever.
Take two: I love how she still hangs up her beautiful needlepoint work, even though she can't see it. She stitched and created so many gorgeous works of art before her macular degeneration and it felt so profound sitting there hugging with her beautiful works behind us.
So glad we got this rare White parents-and-kids picture.
1 comment:
This is such a beautiful, family-full post!
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