The next few days came and went, waiting to hear back from the coroner to release Jeff's body for the funeral. I had never planned a funeral before and was totally unprepared on what to select and most of all "the cost". Jeff's mom graciously went with me to the funeral home to help me get the arrangements together. She was so kind, allowing me to do whatever I wanted. I thought it was strange that the funeral director asked my permission for her to go see Jeff.......I mean come on she is his mother. I agreed and stayed by myself going through the books trying to find something that I thought Jeff would have liked. I know this might sound bad, but I was so grateful for not having to actually have "seen him" up close in the garage and I definitely did not want my last memory of him to be in the basement of a funeral home.
Now that all the arrangements were made the real quandry was how was I going to pay for it. If you remember Jeff had been on lock out from his company since March. We didn't think to purchase individual life insurance policies outside of our employers plans. Now by no means were we broke........however, something I would warn strongly against and would never do again, Jeff and I had separate accounts. None of his money was in my name and vice versa. I could not access any of his money for sometime until it went through attorneys. He had cleared out an account the week before he died and I found the money in our home but it was only a couple thousand dollars, not enough to have a funeral. So I did the unimaginable, I charged his funeral on a credit card, close to $9,000. I had no idea how I was going to pay it off, but I knew the Lord would provide somehow. Jeff's dad was kind enough to purchase the headstone and give up a plot that his family had. When it was all said and done the cost of the funeral was almost $11,000. The sad part was I didn't pick the best of things either. Now on top of everything else I had to worry bout another bill.
On Sunday before the funeral I went to church as usual. I NEEDED to be in church. It was where I found the most comfort, my church family were great. I asked my aunt if she would preach on Job. At the time I had known of the story of Job, but now I was feeling like Job. I remember the song selection was so somber that morning, I'm sure with any loss people don't really know how to react, I couldn't take it though it was just making me more depressed. I stood up in church and if I remember right, thanked them for all their support but asked them if we could sing more "happy" songs, which we did. That was my place of peace and comfort and having gone to church helped prepare me for the next days ahead, the funeral. I'm going to stop here today, because the funeral is a whole post in and of its self.
I was glad to know I had the Lord on my side and trusting in Him was all I could do at this point. Too many things were coming at me all at once without much time to react. It's good to know my father in Heaven knew all about it and helped prepare me long before.
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