Since I got the news on June 17th at 3:15am that mom had passed, life became a whirlwind. There was so much to do, and I thought to myself that I wasn’t so busy when my aunt Ella died. And then I remembered, mom helped. She arranged the funeral, I helped her pick out the flowers for the funeral, together we viewed the body, she decided what clothes for Ella to wear. But this time, all of the arrangements had fallen on me. I had to do e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. My sleeping issues got worse. My mind could not be shut off. I was up at 2am. Well, I might as well do something since I’m up, I thought as I slowly shuffled to my desk and created two poems: one for my son Stephen to read at the funeral, and one for me to read.

Later, I came up with an idea to create a comedic moment, which gave me a reason to immerse myself in creativity. Once the idea was thought up, I created it on the Staples website, ordered them to pickup later, pleased with the effort. Now all I have to do is remember what to say in making the presentation.

I guess everyone who deals with the funeral director has issues to deal with. Their job is to get the biggest bang of a buck to provide their services. The first room during my meeting with the director housed the most expensive caskets: made of solid woods and costing $19000+. Truly that was out of my league. The next room was more reasonable and fit what I thought would be my pocketbook, and I made it known that that was the room we would remain in. My mother stressed to me not to put money in the ground, meaning get the cheapest of everything. She had already paid for her cemetery plot, and I truly believe she thought she paid for the opening of it, but she had not. She paid for two plots including the opening for both, but it was only for one: her sister Ella, who died 13 years earlier. Add another $1900+ to an already looming funeral bill.

My saving grace (thanks Mom!) was she had life insurance. The funeral home used a company that checked to verify that what I said was correct, and it was. Because of that, they fully paid the funeral bill, knowing that when the company processed the paperwork, they would get reimbursed. What a weight that was lifted off my shoulders! My chest felt less tight knowing the funeral arrangements could continue.

Then we went to another room to look at clothing for my mother to wear. Of course, what I liked was the most expensive, ($200+), and what they had was not in the color I wanted to use, which was her favorite color of yellow. I stated that we could use one of her choir robes if I could not find something. But I found something that I thought was perfect through my bestie…Amazon.com.

The price was ridiculously low (less than $45), it was yellow with flower appliques, and since it was one size fit all, I knew they could pin it where needed, and it covered her body…or so I thought.

In the end stages of her advanced dementia, her body started to break down which caused her to have deep wounds, and many were on her arms. Of course I did not want those to be seen. But with less than 24 hours to the funeral I got a call requesting to provide another dress for the reasons stated above. The dress was not covering her arms and thus her wounds were showing. I fought for her, and I fought for the dress.

After the call, I turned and looked at my closet. It was as though the Spirit of God was pulling me in that direction, along with something in the closet that seemed to be whispering “take me, I can help.” As I approached the closet, I saw a yellow sweater that appeared to be the answer to the dilemma. I quickly grabbed it, hopped in my car, picked up the robes from the cleaners and dashed to the funeral home. I stated that I may have a solution and if the sweater would work. The gentleman said he thinks that would work, and the robes were not needed.

When my son and I viewed the body later that evening, the sweater was in the perfect shade of yellow and matched the dress. Her arms were covered completely, and the dress made her look radiantly beautiful. Another heavy weight was lifted off my shoulders. At the funeral, many who came marveled at how lovely she looked. The casket was open only to show from the waist up; my way of protecting her so no one would see her wounds.

What is the conclusion of this story? For those of you who do not have life insurance, get some. It does not have to be a large one, but at least one that will cover funeral expenses. It will help those who are arranging your funeral.