Well Dang

[free_spirit_etc]

I checked on the status of my the claim for burial benefits. Got an IRIS back that they had received it and are processing it. Got a call today to let me know they can't find it. I have to send another one.

Poor guy - He couldn't get his teeth fixed (one time dental treatment they lost in the shuffle and never approved), couldn't get his C-file, couldn't get his discharge physical, couldn't get them to acknowledge what his actual claim for cancer was, couldn't get his Service Connection - and now he's still having a heck of a time getting the VA to chip in $600 toward his $10,000 burial.

Free

[free_spirit_etc]

If you want to put your husband in a wind chime, I know where you can get one for $150. B) I don't think they even have $100 pine boxes any more.

But yeah, people have different ideas about what to do when the time comes, and when the time does come those ideas might change again. But I think most people do what they think it right for the right reasons. At least I hope so.

Here are the songs my husband wanted played at his funeral:

WHEN I GET WHERE I’M GOING

When I get where I'm going

on the far side of the sky.

The first thing that I'm gonna do

Is spread my wings and fly.

I'm gonna land beside a lion,

and run my fingers through his mane.

Or I might find out what it's like

To ride a drop of rain

Yeah when I get where I'm going,

there'll be only happy tears.

I will shed the sins and struggles,

I have carried all these years.

And I'll leave my heart wide open,

I will love and have no fear.

Yeah when I get where I'm going,

Don't cry for me down here.

IF TOMORROW NEVER COMES

If tomorrow never comes

Will she know how much I loved her

Did I try in every way to show her every day

That shes my only one

And if my time on earth were through

And she must face the world without me

Is the love I gave her in the past

Gonna be enough to last

If tomorrow never comes

The first song - the first time he heard it - he said "When the time comes, that is what I want played."

The second song - he gave to me several months before he died. I asked him if that meant he was saying goodbye. He said - No, but he just wanted to make sure that if he didn't happen to make it - that he had showed me enough love when he was here- so I would really know - and enough to last me for always.

I listened to it over and over - and at first it made me cry just thinking about it. But I was finally able to go back to him and tell him - The answer is Yes. If tomorrow never comes, you have showed me enough love while you were here so that I really know - and enough to last me for always.

Free

Free,

I am one of the lucky ones, I still have my husband after 44 years.

How and what I will do if he should be the first to go, I have no

ideal.

Do we bicker at each other like old folks do, You Bet we do.

Sometimes we are ready to kill each other.

Life has a way about doing that to some people.

I think it is called, " Old Age".

You did the right thing in your husbands funeral and the expenses.

If my husband ask me to stick him in a pine box for $100.00 and

stick him in the ground. I would not do this.

I am sorry, but I couldn't carry out those wishes.

Would he do that to me, sometimes, I think he would, but might be

afraid I would come back in another life to get even with him.

I am just like your husband, I do not care to discuss my own death.

I enjoy more of talking about my life.

Realistic No! Just the way that I am.

I know that funeral directors want you to make a dozen decisions when

you least feel like it, but our world moves too fast anyway.

You did just fine and I admire you so much for what you are doing

for your son and with your husbands' claim.

Keep your spirits high.

Always,

Betty

[Pete53]

Free:

You are a true inspiration and it is a privilege to read your thoughts on Hadit.

A long time ago a Minister who I really liked a lot when asked that it must be hard ministering to really old people told me it was his joy and his true calling to visit the elderly and offer them comfort cause they appreciated him so much more than the movers and shakers in the Congregation.

You did right by your husband no matter what anyone thinks and like others have posted I am sure that he is as proud of you as you are of him.

[free_spirit_etc]

Pete,

I have also been inspired by many of your posts. You are always posting words of wisdom and encouragement to us all.

I sure understand what your friend meant by his joy in working with the elderly. I was an activity director (the party girl) at a nursing home for years. And people would say "How can you work there?" Like it was some horrid thing. But I didn't find it horrid at all. I found it to be a great joy and a true calling.

And I guess that I didn't see the people as "old." I just saw them as people...or maybe the essence of who they were. But I do rememeber one time - after I got back from a vacation - I looked across the dining room and thought "Man! These people are really OLD!" LOL - Like I was seeing that for the first time, or seeing them how other people seemed to see them.

I think that is why I love my husband so much, because I could see the essence of who he really was. I know after he died, his brother told me that I was lucky because he let ME get close to him. He didn't seem to get close to a lot of people.

But there was no question of us being close. I know a couple of weeks before he died, we talked about how having the cancer had, ironically, healed him in many other ways.

And I said "You spent a lot of years running away from yourself. Didn't you?" And he responded, "I spent a lot of years running away from myself and a lot of years trying to find myself. And then I met you, and there *I* was."

I will always hold that statement in my heart. And I know he meant it - because he was semi-drunk on pain medicine when he said it. B)

And it is odd, because we wouldn't seem to be that evenly matched. He was the retired Chief Master Sergeant and I was the, as someone once said "an Old English Sheepdog that thinks it is a lap dog."

He was the kind of person that would line up his french fries according to size, and I was the kind of person that would just eat them frozen, right out of the bag.

But somehow we seemed to "fit" together in a totally wonderful, though somewhat eclectic way.

He just took it in stride when I was considering tie-dying a wedding dress blue to match his uniform (as if a tie dyed dress would match - lol)And I know he knew that once I started tie dying, I wouldn't be able to stick just with blue.

I remember the woman who did the eulogy talking about our wedding, and how he stood there so proud and dignified in his uniform, and how I came "chaoticly" down the aisle - with a feather in my hair.

But in some odd way, we "fit" together.

He would always tell me "I didn't marry you to change you." And I would tell him, "Then this is your lucky day.."

Of course, for MY part of the wishes for the funeral / farewell party - I had our friend do the service. She is a minister, but practices the Native American tradition.

Since he was a Retired Chief, the AFB sent active duty Chiefs to stand Honor Guard at his casket.

So there he was - surrounded by full dressed Chiefs, with our friend, in full Native American regalia doing the ceremony.("Wado Great Spirit!!!")

One of my friends called it "A whole lot of Chiefs and one Indian."

But he would have loved the eclectic blend.

And before he was buried, I put a little gift on his heart. It was a tiny pink glitter tennis shoe (that would have went GREAT with a tie dyed wedding dress) - and a heart shaped stone, and a fortune from a fortune cookie that said "You are about to take a most wonderful journey" that I got the night before.

So there he was in full dress uniform, with my pink tennis shoe on his heart.

His father asked "What is that?" I said "That's a pink tennis shoe." He said "I know WHAT it is. But why is it there?"

So I told him. And he honored my wishes.

Free

Free:

You are a true inspiration and it is a privilege to read your thoughts on Hadit.

A long time ago a Minister who I really liked a lot when asked that it must be hard ministering to really old people told me it was his joy and his true calling to visit the elderly and offer them comfort cause they appreciated him so much more than the movers and shakers in the Congregation.

You did right by your husband no matter what anyone thinks and like others have posted I am sure that he is as proud of you as you are of him.