A “Little House on the Prairie” Type Casket - July 30th

This afternoon Beth said to me, “It’s days like today where I think, ‘Wow, 4 months is a long time.’” Beth had a pretty rough day today. It started with her falling. It wasn’t a big fall. She got up this morning to use the bathroom and her legs gave out because they are so weak.  She said, “Today was one of those days where it was difficult to even just to roll over”.  Beth described it as, “Not so much pain, but just extreme discomfort throughout my entire body, all day”.  My mother convinced Beth to take two pain meds to help her manage and Beth obliged. Beth is always reluctant to take even one pill for pain and when she does take one it’s a sure fire sign she is not doing well. For her to agree to take TWO pain pills is just flat out unheard of.  

Once the pain pills kicked in I was able to have a great conversation and really connect with her. Because Beth never really feels well and is stubborn about “drugging” up all the time, it is sometimes hard to connect because she is concentrating on not being in pain. Today, once she was relieved of pain, we were able to talk.  (Side note: If this was me, I would be popping pills like they were Skittles).

A couple of interesting things that came from our conversation today.

1. Beth wants a simple casket.  A “Little House on the Prairie” type casket. I have never seen Little House on the Prairie” so I had no idea what she was talking about. She basically is saying she doesn’t want me to waste a bunch of money on some over the top casket.  She wants a plain and simple casket.  There is sweetness in simplicity.  

2. We talked about her thoughts on embalming and the effects on the environment (remember Beth is high as a kite during these conversations). I never knew someone could have such strong feeling about the practice of embalming.

3. Beth mentioned the type of flowers she wants at her funeral.  She wants Peonies, Hydrangeas and Ranunculus. Again, I have no idea what those are. I am not even sure if those are real flowers (she had to spell them for me).  She may be trying to make me look stupid here.

4. We talked about how much say the kids should have regarding the funeral.  Referring back to Beth’s strong feelings about embalming, she did mention that she would consider it if we thought it (an open casket) would help the kids in the grieving process. We talked about if we should ask the kids what they thought.  Just the thought of sitting down our kids and talking about open vs closed casket seemed weird but could it be helpful to them to talk about these things? What if we had a closed casket and the kids wanted differently? We really have no idea what we are doing with all of this. It’s questions like this that make make our heads spin. It’s overwhelming at times.  

Tomorrow we leave for Chicago for her 3 week check up on Monday.  We are praying the antibody infusion is doing it’s job and slowing down the cancer growth. We are praying that Beth can get some relief of her symptoms that have been holding her down. We are praying for time. We are praying for inspiration from above to help us answer some of the questions and decisions we will have to make in the future.  

One last thing. A request of sorts (mainly for our local friends). Each of the kids on separate occasions have expressed how they struggle when people ask them "How is your Mom?". They don't know what to say and in Caroline and Lily's case, they told me that they "just don't want to talk about it".  It's gotten to the point where Caroline and Lily said they are dreading church tomorrow because they know everyone is going to ask about Beth.

This is a tough situation because we know so many people really do care and really want to know how Beth is doing but I am hoping you all can help and refrain from asking the kids about Beth. I, on the other hand am free game. Please feel free to me call, text, Facebook message, whatever, for an update. Also, there is this Blog that I have been trying to update daily that is hopefully giving people the information they are looking for.

I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way.  We appreciate all of the love and support. We know that when people ask they are expressing love and concern for our family.  I'm just trying to help my kids as they deal with all that's going.  This might be preaching to the choir here because if you are reading this it means you most likely read the blog somewhat regularly and would be less likely to ask one of the kids how their mom is doing.  

We love you all.

#BattleTogether