Missouri and Arkansas

I came down south for a visit to Eric's parents and for a memorial service for Eric at his college-College of the Ozarks. The service was saturday. It was humble and small but it was meaningful. I was nervous to meet his friends from college because I wasn't sure how I would relate. What if Eric was so different then that the man I married wasn't who they knew? Fortunately, Eric was Eric. It was encouraging to me that they loved the man that I love. They knew about how he was slow to speak. They knew that he was a hard worker. They knew that he was silly and did things in his own way. They knew Eric.

I traveled down to Arkansas after that. Today we went to a monument shop and we picked out Eric's gravestone. It was so hard to pick something out. You want it to be something that you like, the family likes and most importantly something that accurately shows who Eric was and what was important to him. We picked a black granite stone. We will have a cross with a music staff swirling off of it. His name will be in a box. The birth and death dates will be below that on polished stone. There will be an acoustic guitar in the corner and Gal. 5:1 will be below that ("it is for freedom that Christ has set you free"). The back of the marker will have Husband of Sarah, Father to Micah & Lydia, Chaplain, Captain, Pastor & Friend.

I went through so many emotions when I was there. I felt angry that Eric "stuck" me with all of these decisions. I felt sad that he was gone. I felt relieved that this part of the journey was almost done. I felt tired. I feel tired. I want this to be done soon so that I can rest. I miss the feeling rested. I know that will come with time but I wish I could speed the process along.

We bury Eric's urn on Wednesday. The headstone will come in a few months.