Justin was sick for 4 years. Every piece of those 1,460 days HE FOUGHT. He fought so hard. We went from what felt like the ends of the earth to make sure he was getting his best chance to defeat these diseases. I had ups and downs, highs and lows, moments of the greatest faith and moments of full fledged basket case. Justin never wavered. Never.
During the time that Justin was sick we made moments available to talk about the what ifs. We had healthy dialogue about specific wishes for his funeral, just in case one day I had to plan it. He didn't love talking about it, because his mind saw only LIFE. But, he humored me because he knew I would want to honor him in the very best way could that moment arise. I mean....I had also forced him to talk about our 25th wedding anniversary party, our kids graduation parties and our 50th birthdays. So, it wasn't like an out of the ordinary thing for me to ask questions about a life event that may not have come for another 80 years.
I am so very glad that we shared those conversations. I second guessed NOT ONE SINGLE thing in the planning process of Justin's Celebration of Life. He was honored from beginning to end in the most incredible ways and I felt such peace in how it all turned out.
I am not a big funeral fan. I mean, who is?? But, I for real don't go to them. I planned and went to my moms, I went to my best friends dads and then there was Justin's. I can barely remember if there were maybe a couple others throughout my life. If I have any tiny excuse to miss a funeral...I am using it.
Every single person I know deals with death/loss/grief/funerals differently.
For me...the moment I sang into Justin's ear a sweet worship song, held his hand tight, told him how much I loved him and kissed him on the lips as he slipped away from this earth...he was gone. The body that I slept next to for the past 10 years and the body that I had held tightly for that last 24 hours IMMEDIATELY became just a shell. Just a remnant of a person who was now healed. For me, it finished right there. I quietly got up and left the room...it was finished. For me, that was the last time I wanted to see his earthly body. I wanted to only picture him exclusively walking with Christ, in a perfect body....too precious and beautiful to even try and fully imagine.
Justin had made me promise that I would not plop his remains on the fireplace to sit around and be an awkward conversation piece. He didn't want to be buried and I didn't want to just dump him out somewhere. (side note...all of these are wonderful and fabulous options. how boring if we all did the same thing?) Anyways, I did some research and come across the Bios Urn. The Bios Urn is a biodegradable urn that you plant in the ground along with the seeds to a tree....essentially a memorial tree, but with the ashes included. I don't have like a super green thumb...so to be safe I purchased two. One to be planted here at our new home and one to be planted at the Frio House.
I tried to make the planting of one of the seeds a "thing" - I thought it would be so beautiful to plant this seed with our closest friends. We would pray over this place and this seed and we would honor JMac one more time.
But then, the Boerne monsoon arrived. I cancelled the planting twice due to crazy weather. It was a hard decision to make because I so badly wanted to share this moment with our people, but I am so grateful....because that sweet little maple seed would have been washed right away.
Today...on a whim I decided to grab the boys and plant that sweet baby maple seed. Just the four of us sat together, we talked about the "dust" as we poured half of it into the one of the Bios Urns. We talked about sweet memories of daddy while we filled the pot with dirt. We prayed over the seed and we prayed over daddy's life. We thanked God repeatedly for allowing us to have Justin...even if we felt the time was cut way way too short. We took turns praying and sharing and then we made a nice little schedule for watering it...because you better believe that adorable, precious, way sweet moment broke out into a full on brother war regarding who would water the tree when. Because, well we are just real people.
We planted the tree in a pot and when we feel like it is strong enough we will transfer it into the ground. Please pray for our sweet little seed. We would love to watch that seed grow into the most gorgeous maple tree there ever was. And if not...well there is a back up seed in the pantry.
