The Days Following:

 

 
                                Wayne, Sr.
Sunday:
We went to Mom and Dad's to see my brother, Russ.  He lives in Springfield and came up that morning.
Wayne had wanted to be buried across the road from Mom and Dad's in an old cemetery that hasn't had anyone buried for over a hundred years.  Dad and several of us went over to pick a spot for Dwayne.  Dad had planted pine trees in the cemetery years ago and they had grown to be so beautiful.
The cemetery was all grown up and vines covered the ground.  Dad picked the spot and then Dwayne, Chad, Todd and most of the nephews spent the day cleaning up the site and field surrounding the cemetery for parking.

Ballance Cemetery

 Wayne, Jr., Deone, Bobbie, Kate and I went to Null & Sons to plan Wayne's funeral.  You think there is no way you can get through this, but you do.  Roger Licklider made it very comfortable and easy for us to follow along.  We were going as cheap as possible as Bobbie didn't have any money for the funeral.  My family always teases me about buying everything on clearance.  We picked the cheapest coffin and then Roger says, "I do have two caskets downstairs on clearance."  Hey, even in the midst of tragedy you can get excited over buying on clearance!!  Just a little humor to get me through this.

Bobbie had been trying to talk Wayne into letting her buy life insurance on him, but he said no that the VA would pay for all of it.  And to Bobbie's shock, there wasn't any money to pay for it and we were at a stand still.  I volunteered to take out a loan to pay for the funeral and all memorials could be made out for the funeral.  (Through donations and the Rolla Arts Guild auction, the funeral was paid off in just six weeks.  We are so appreciative of all donations and the work of putting on the auction by the local artists.)  Then it was time to write up the obituary.  I thought we did pretty good on it until after the funeral when Mom was able to read the memorial and said we didn't put anything in about Wayne being a Christian.  It wasn't on our form we filled out but definitely something we should have thought about.  So sorry to Momma for not including it. 

We went back to Mom and Dad's.  Lots of just sitting around in a daze and trying to visit.  Mom and Dad were holding up pretty good.  Our good friends, Mike and Susan were at Mom's.  Susan knew I needed her.  Several neighbors and family stopped by bringing food.

We went over to the cemetery.  Dwayne and all the ones helping had done a great job of cleaning up the cemetery and clearing the road through the field to get there.  They had even brush hogged the field for parking.  The nephews were totally lost in their emotions of losing their uncle and I think working to do clean the cemetery helped them a lot.  They knew this is what Wayne would have wanted and making it just right gave them a sense of satisfaction.  The cemetery is just up the hill from where Wayne and Bobbie's house is.

More visiting in the evening and then on home to rest.

Monday:

Woke up to a phone call that Mom had gotten really sick during the night and an ambulance had taken her to the hospital.  Turns out she had pneumonia and wasn't doing well.

Kate and I took Bobbie shopping for clothes.  J. C. Penney's had a great sale and we were able to get Bobbie a couple of nice outfits and shoes to wear.  Kate and I also bought something for ourselves to wear.  I think we were glad we were financially able to do this as we always have had to just make do before with whatever was in our closet.

The pallbearers were to wear blue jeans and white long sleeve shirts.  Penney's didn't have anything in their size.  I knew they would like western shirts so we headed to Family Center.  I was so surprised they didn't have any.  Now what to do-we went to MFA and they had a few western long sleeve shirts and even one in a small. 

We ate lunch in town and then went to order flowers.  They were so expensive!  Katie wanted a bench from us siblings and they said they could get one in.  I called Angie at our local florist, The Flower Basket in Vienna and she had several.  We decided to just order all our flowers from her.  Bobbie wanted a spray with Wayne's hat, rope and holster worked in.  She did an excellent job.

Back to Mom and Dad's where we all once again sat around in shock more or less.

Dwayne and I went to see Mom that evening.  She had pneumonia and was having trouble breathing. The doctor was going to try to let her out on Wednesday for the funeral but that didn't happen.

Tuesday:

I had planned on going into work for a few hours but there just didn't seem to be time.  Lizzy had spent the night with us and her and I went to see Mom.  She still wasn't doing too good.

Liz and I did have fun while she was fixing my hair for the visitation.

April said we looked too happy to be going to the funeral home.  Believe me, when Dwayne is taking the picture he acts so goofy you can't help but laugh!!

We started out around 5:45 p.m. with the visitation and didn't get done until 9:30 p.m.  The line was stretched outside and all along the side of the funeral.  It was taking two hours before people could get up to us.  Such an outpouring of love from family, friends and some whom you haven't seen in years, co-workers of all of us and about fifty from the Art Group.  You didn't  have time to grieve during the visitation as you were too busy talking to everyone.  Bobbie, Dad and all the siblings and spouses stood up there through the whole evening.  Sure had some sore feet from the new shoes!

We left to see Mom and Lizzy went back home with her Dad. 

Home to rest as we would have a most exhausting and emotional day ahead for us.

 

I am so grateful for my family and the support we have shown each other over the past few days.