Papa's Memorial Service

My grandmother came back to IL in April for Papa’s Memorial service on Good Friday.  She came back to town the weekend before and stayed with us as she worked with our Pastor to get the arrangements made for Papa.  Papa was cremated and his ashes were sent to our house and they were buried at the National Cemetery in Elwood.  I wasn’t home when his ashes arrived at our house and apparently the post office felt I should be home to sign for them.  So the kids and I had to go to the post office to get them.  I thought it was going to be just a discrete box, but it had “Cremated Remains” stamped all over the box in large red letters.  Still the lady at the post office just slammed it on the counter.  We had to keep the box out of the children’s hands and safe for a couple months leading up to the memorial service.  Brad and I joked around about Papa staying with us, because what else are you going to do.

The reason the memorial service was being done at our church is that Papa really liked listening to Pastor Patrick when they would come and stay with us.  So when Papa was sick he asked if we could have a memorial service at our church and of course we said yes and we would take care of it.

The night before the memorial service my cousins, Matt and Dana and their 3 kids, stayed at our house.  In addition my sister Kasi and my grandma were also staying at our house.  It was fun to have everyone over.  The kids were all so happy to see and play with each other.  The kids went to bed late and the adults stayed up and talked even later.  It was really nice!  The printer at church was having issues, so while we were talking we printed bulletins and folded them for the memorial service. 

The memorial service itself was beautiful and seeing the military honors preformed at the cemetery was very neat.  I couldn’t believe how big the cemetery was.  It was a bitter sweet day, but wonderful to see family and all the people that loved my grandfather.