My sister and I were tasked with picking out what she would be buried in. A beautiful green dress. Sandy Hook Green.
Tina and I decided to wear yoga pants and Sandy Hook School Staff shirts with black Uggs to the wake. We knew that we would be standing for 12 hours or more. We wanted to be comfortable. We wanted to show our support for the school. Mostly, we wanted to match Mommy.
We decided that her cute little feet should be comfortable for eternity - she would be buried in her 25+ year old Uggs that her father brought home for her from a trip to Australia.
The funeral home did all that they could to make it perfect, to make us comfortable. When we dropped off her green dress, we were told that it was not enough. She needed to wear sleeves.
Sleeves were necessary to cover the gunshot wounds that she suffered from. We went back to her closet and selected a black cardigan, I think? Maybe we asked someone else to drop one off. I don't remember.
When I got to the wake, there were lines of motorcycles - I didn't understand why. Westboro Baptist Church was threatening to protest. They came to make sure that didn't happen.
Then I saw the line of people waiting to get in. So many people. I was shuffled through a back door and brought in to see her.
She was not wearing earrings, she ALWAYS wore earrings. Her lips were so chapped, I had to put real effort into not trying to pick the loose skin off of them.
Looking back, I am assuming that they were chapped from the many, many hours that she spent in the "temporary morgue" in the Sandy Hook School parking lot.
And, now, six years later, I am realizing that her body was then stored in a cooler and that probably did not help either. They put an ugly pink lipstick on her lips. She would have hated it.
I don't know how long we were standing there - 12? 13? hours. Thousands of people. Most I did not know. 99.8% of those that I did know, I do not remember seeing.
I just remember standing there. As close as I could stand next to her.
That was one of the hardest days of my life. But, honestly, if I got to see her just one more time, even if it was just laying in her beautiful casket - I would do it all over again.
It is NOT FUCKING FAIR.
It is NOT FUCKING FAIR.
