After viewing Joseph’s lifeless body, Phil, Curt, Wyatt, and I went to our local funeral home to choose a casket and make final arrangements for our boy, who was so full of life just twenty-four hours earlier. Brides spend an entire year planning a wedding; we had less than a day to prepare our farewell to our beautiful son and brother.
I had nine months to prepare for Joseph’s birth. Phil and I carefully selected his name, and I prepared a nursery for him, complete with hand-sewn balloons adorning the walls. I sewed the quilt for his crib. It had a bouquet of bright-colored balloons in the center and a border of red with tiny white polka dots. I sewed every crooked stitch with so much love.
Wandering around a funeral home, choosing our son’s deathbed felt wrong! It offended me to be there.
My family and I roamed around the room looking for a casket, the final bed for the body of Joseph. I thought back to the bunk beds I purchased eleven years earlier – sturdy beds for rambunctious little boys to play on, build forts, and have sleepovers. The plan was to send them to college with Joseph in the fall.
And now I was at a funeral home, having to choose my boy’s deathbed. We were getting ready to pay a small fortune for a casket to cradle our boy’s earthly body, only to have the ground swallow it whole.
We selected the second least expensive coffin. It wasn’t a piece of finely crafted heirloom furniture that Joseph would carry into adulthood and then pass down to future generations, nor would he spend eternity in it.
A prayer for us …
Lord,
Selecting a deathbed for my child feels wrong on every level. I don’t want to do this – I want to run out the back door, hide under the covers, and pretend his death never happened.
I need you. Step in and do what I cannot. Show me how to digest his death and navigate my new life without my child. Help me to keep my eyes fixed on you.
Amen