Thread by @ShannonDingle

When people die, decisions must be made about the body and the service and such.

Those decisions are limited right now, as cremation is the only option right now in many cases and funeral services can’t happen traditionally.

But let me tell you about the decision process.

The first decision I had to make about Lee’s body was fully acknowledging that it was only a body, a shell that no longer housed his soul. It looked like him, it smelled like him, it wasn’t him.

Then, body part by body part, I had to give consent for organ or tissue donations.

I had to decide if I wanted to receive the updates from the organ team. Initially, I designated my friend Lindsey for that. I only survived the earliest times because I passed off every task I could to our friends and Lee’s family.

Next it was burial or cremation.

We were only 37. We hadn’t seriously discussed any death stuff.

I called my therapist. In her mid 50s, her husband died (also too young) four months before Lee died. She was able to help me focus.

Burial it was, clearly, because cremation was taboo in my Ugandan kids’ village.

With burial, I had to choose a plot. We were driven around the cemetery in a golf cart to take a look at places his body could go.

Oakwood Cemetery is beautiful. I knew Lee wouldn’t have cared, so I picked the spot I thought his parents would like best.

They asked if I would like to reserve the plot next to him for me to be buried. I said yes. I’m so young I didn’t have to place a deposit to hold it for me.

37 year olds shouldn’t have burial plots, neither one in which to be buried now or one that will be mine.

But we do.

I chose the cemetery & funeral home based on research Beth did for me.

Beth knows our church’s values as a fellow member and knew us well enough as a friend to first check historically black-owned homes. I went with the one she felt best about.

(Beth saved my life that week.)

Lisa went with me for every awful decisions. The cemetery, the funeral home, all the places. She told me every night what the schedule was for the next day.

She knew how to be there for me because exactly four years before Lee died, her son Eli died. He was 4.

After we talked through all the things with the funeral home guy, we went to the showroom. I chose the brightest colored casket.

I also had to choose the vault, a concrete box for the casket to go in. He said I could have it painted any color.

I chose red with a NCSU logo.

Then I wrote the check.

I wasn’t done yet, though. I had to choose the clothes for him to wear.

In the casket.

I chose a silly graphic tee for the undershirt, his favorite black plaid button down, and — if you knew him, you knew these — the obnoxious mustard/orange slacks he loved.

And Batman socks.

Then, because of all the media attention, we held the viewing for family only & the burial the same.

Because we couldn’t trust that media trucks wouldn’t follow us to the burial (they were set up across the street from the church as it was), we had the burial before the service.

I didn’t grieve much that day.

I was focused on my children, focused on honoring our marriage vows by making the decisions he would have wanted, focused on getting through.

But I did hide in the church library for several minutes, sobbing, before returning to the main area.

So many others got me through that week of decisions for his body — Donna & Pastor Lisa (who returned from sabbatical to do the service) & Maggie & Todd & Angie & The Canadians™️ & Tori & Christina & Lee’s parents and sister and brother-in-law & his co-workers.

We were so loved.

We were so loved, and I was so lonely, all at once.

I was so held and so empty, all at once.

I developed scripts, not intentionally but organically, to answer the same questions I was asked, over and over.

Scripts allowed me to disconnect from the words as I said them.

And hundreds of families, every day, are beginning this part of the grieving process.

A lot is different, given the times, but grief is always intimate & personal so anyone else’s journey to say goodbye to the body that held the soul they so loved is a different story than mine.

But grief is hard and sacred, so let’s speak all the truths that need speaking, but may we also be gentle with ourselves and each other.

Gentle, gentle, gentle.