Steves Funeral
We had to get up a little bit earlier than we like to for a Saturday so we could take care of the one errand that we didn't get taken care of yesterday before the funeral. We decided that we had to be dressed and ready to go by 9:00 AM. Our kids didn't want to go to the funeral and we decided that they didn't have too. We regretted that decision, after the fact.
What we had to do, was to run to Amelias so we could look over the Santa suits and decide exactly what we needed. We did decide that we would rather get it big than to get it too small. We have already contacted President LaMunyon and he agreed to be our Santa. At Amelias, we looked at the suits and decided on the extra large. I don't know what the large would do, but the extra large was too large for me, but pillows or something could make up the slack on that. I only hope we didn't make a goof up on that. Time will tell. My wife also saw some homemade fudge and she can hardly ever pass that up, so we got about a pound of that.
We went over to the Wachs house to wait for the time of the funeral. It started at 11:00 and we decided to be over to the church at 10:30. We only had a half hour wait before we had to leave, so we didn't leave our house much too early. Melanie looked good in the outfit that we spent all of yesterday getting. She was excited to be dressed as such.
As stated above, we left our kids at home and went to the church. We greeted a bunch of people and there was some general chit-chat. Chantelle told me that she hadn't come over to our house for Thanksgiving because her mom would be there and she was afraid that she would set her mom off. I think she was probably wrong in that assessment, but it explained to me why she did what she did. Steve's brother Ron and his wife chose not to come to the funeral because since they are the ones who took the children away from Melanie and Steve, they were afraid that there may be some kind of problem with Melanie going out of control. I am not sure they are wrong in that, but it would be interesting to know for sure.
The prelude music was a tape that Steve had made of his piano playing while he was in Alabama. It was really quite beautiful, and he was quite good at playing the piano (something I did not know before now). After everybody was seated the funeral started. Steve was cremated so there was no casket, and there wasn't an urn either. Nothing of Steve was there as far as I could tell, unless his spirit was present (which I believe it was). Chantelle was the first speaker at her dads funeral. Hers was the hardest part that I had because when she started to cry, it made me cry for her. She truly loved her father (despite his cocaine usage). Anne followed her by singing "How Great Thou Art" and then a friend of Steve spoke. The friend was Ed Bolander (of whom I have a slight remembrance of). I know his brother better. His remembrance was mostly lighthearted things that boys do with each other in growing up. Anne read a poem, and this was followed by Steve's father. I was glad to see Kent include Melanie as a helper to Steve through Steve's life because she really was. There have been a lot of bad feelings between the two families over some of the incidents that have happened. There was one point when Melanie talked from the audience to Kent saying that Steve died of fear (the fear of what the doctors were going to do in the way of surgery to fix the congenital heart failure he died of). For a minute, I thought Melanie was going to escalate, but that did not happen. I liked the way that nobody tried to steer around Steve's addiction. They simply realized that it was a part of Steve that wasn't the best choice to make. The services were very comforting, as funeral services should be. Because of the way things were presented, we wished that we had told our children that they had to come. We can't look back now and make that decision though. It will have to be water under the bridge. About the only thing that I was disturbed by was that Anne was said to be a family friend rather than family in the program. I wondered how that made Anne and Pam feel, but didn't ever ask them about that. There was no interment of Steve. It was simply suggested that this would be done at a later date. Steve's urn will be placed upon his mothers coffin at that time.
After the services, I went home and picked up my kids to bring them to the church for the luncheon. It was a good luncheon, and it was good to talk with the family members on both sides of the family that was there.
We stayed at the Wachs house for almost the rest of the day. We did have to get home to make sure our dog didn't have any accidents in our house though. Not much else happened today.
What we had to do, was to run to Amelias so we could look over the Santa suits and decide exactly what we needed. We did decide that we would rather get it big than to get it too small. We have already contacted President LaMunyon and he agreed to be our Santa. At Amelias, we looked at the suits and decided on the extra large. I don't know what the large would do, but the extra large was too large for me, but pillows or something could make up the slack on that. I only hope we didn't make a goof up on that. Time will tell. My wife also saw some homemade fudge and she can hardly ever pass that up, so we got about a pound of that.
We went over to the Wachs house to wait for the time of the funeral. It started at 11:00 and we decided to be over to the church at 10:30. We only had a half hour wait before we had to leave, so we didn't leave our house much too early. Melanie looked good in the outfit that we spent all of yesterday getting. She was excited to be dressed as such.
As stated above, we left our kids at home and went to the church. We greeted a bunch of people and there was some general chit-chat. Chantelle told me that she hadn't come over to our house for Thanksgiving because her mom would be there and she was afraid that she would set her mom off. I think she was probably wrong in that assessment, but it explained to me why she did what she did. Steve's brother Ron and his wife chose not to come to the funeral because since they are the ones who took the children away from Melanie and Steve, they were afraid that there may be some kind of problem with Melanie going out of control. I am not sure they are wrong in that, but it would be interesting to know for sure.
The prelude music was a tape that Steve had made of his piano playing while he was in Alabama. It was really quite beautiful, and he was quite good at playing the piano (something I did not know before now). After everybody was seated the funeral started. Steve was cremated so there was no casket, and there wasn't an urn either. Nothing of Steve was there as far as I could tell, unless his spirit was present (which I believe it was). Chantelle was the first speaker at her dads funeral. Hers was the hardest part that I had because when she started to cry, it made me cry for her. She truly loved her father (despite his cocaine usage). Anne followed her by singing "How Great Thou Art" and then a friend of Steve spoke. The friend was Ed Bolander (of whom I have a slight remembrance of). I know his brother better. His remembrance was mostly lighthearted things that boys do with each other in growing up. Anne read a poem, and this was followed by Steve's father. I was glad to see Kent include Melanie as a helper to Steve through Steve's life because she really was. There have been a lot of bad feelings between the two families over some of the incidents that have happened. There was one point when Melanie talked from the audience to Kent saying that Steve died of fear (the fear of what the doctors were going to do in the way of surgery to fix the congenital heart failure he died of). For a minute, I thought Melanie was going to escalate, but that did not happen. I liked the way that nobody tried to steer around Steve's addiction. They simply realized that it was a part of Steve that wasn't the best choice to make. The services were very comforting, as funeral services should be. Because of the way things were presented, we wished that we had told our children that they had to come. We can't look back now and make that decision though. It will have to be water under the bridge. About the only thing that I was disturbed by was that Anne was said to be a family friend rather than family in the program. I wondered how that made Anne and Pam feel, but didn't ever ask them about that. There was no interment of Steve. It was simply suggested that this would be done at a later date. Steve's urn will be placed upon his mothers coffin at that time.
After the services, I went home and picked up my kids to bring them to the church for the luncheon. It was a good luncheon, and it was good to talk with the family members on both sides of the family that was there.
We stayed at the Wachs house for almost the rest of the day. We did have to get home to make sure our dog didn't have any accidents in our house though. Not much else happened today.
posted by Craig's Blog at 10:25 PM
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