{It feels better to smile}

Yep, I’m here :) 

It’s been a busy couple days.  Thursday Sara & I drove to Lees Summit to meet up with the rest of our family for Ashley’s funeral.  It’s hard to describe her funeral & celebration of life.  The word that keeps coming to mind is perfect.  It was very hard to watch her whole family; her mom, her sister, her dad, her aunts, her uncles, her cousins,etc.  You just put yourself in their shoes and you don’t know what to say.  On our 4 hour drive there & our 4 hour drive back, Sara & I didn’t turn on the radio once.  We talked the whole time.  We talked about a lot of stuff and we also talked about Ashley & her family.  Ashley was our second cousin, not our first.  I was telling Sara that it makes me feel horrible when people tell me, “I’m so sorry to hear about your cousin.”  I know people are just being sympathetic and really…what else are you supposed to say?  I say the same thing.  I just can’t help but sit there and think “Don’t apologize to me!  I’m not her mom, I’m not her sister, I’m not her best friend!  Don’t apologize to me, apologize to them.”   Those are the people who make my heart ache.  Watching them go through it all and not being able to do anything.   I’ve grown up going to funerals, my parents never tried to shelter us from this part of life and nor will I shelter my kids.   It’s a part of life and we’ve all learned that a funeral is a celebration of that persons life and it’s not something you should be afraid of or want to keep your kids away from…But when they are as young as Ashley was, it is going to be harder. 

There were lots of sobs & sniffles throughout the funeral, but after it was over I realized I didn’t cry once.  Two of my nieces & two of my nephews were there and they distracted me a lot.  They made me smile, they made me laugh, they were silly, they were innocent & they lightened the mood.   I felt bad because I feel like there is a standard that you have to cry at a funeral but I just didn’t…Ashley loved babies and kids I decided she was probably just fine with me smiling at her funeral versus crying.  She probably would have been doing the same thing as me.  The funeral was beautiful, the burial was simple & sweet, her celebration of life was truly a celebration.  Her family all wore purple (her favorite color) rather than black, the priest did a great job and used Ashley’s well-known greeting, “Hey friend!” throughout the service, all her friends & family released purple star balloons at the burial and exclaimed another common Ashley saying, “See ya!” as they released the balloons.  One of her friends held up a whole line of cars trying to get out of the graveyard because they didn’t realize they had people (my brother…that poor poor girl) waiting behind them to get out.   They were running as fast as they could across the graveyard, with their heels, their purses, their coats…and laughing.  I just couldn’t help but think that Ashley was laughing so hard with them.   It made me smile :)   The day Ashley was buried was also her 23rd birthday so her family decided to do end the day with a “celebration of life” party for Ashley.  We even sang Happy Birthday to her.   I think she would have loved it. 

90% of the time I just feel awkward in sad situations.  I don’t know what to do.  I don’t ever want to say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, not look at someone the right way, etc.  You have those people who judge how you react to these situations and if you don’t react how they think you should react…they never stop talking about it.  Those people stress me out!  I’m one that always does better with a smile.  I’m not saying I don’t cry….believe me, I cry.  My dad had his stroke, I bawled the whole way home.  You say something wrong to me on a bad day, I’ll cry.  My sisters bring up “online dating” (because they “know I really want to find someone and they hate to watch me be alone and they know I don’t have time to go out and put myself in situation where I could find someone and they’ve known several people it’s worked for”, blah blah blah) and I cry because I can’t believe people think I should resort to that, I cry if I see my mom or dad cry, I cry if I laugh too hard, I cried when my dad called to tell me Ashley passed away,etc.  I can cry.  I just find a smile more comfortable and smiling doesn’t make me look like I’ve been punched in the face 12 times (like crying does).   I don’t know why I didn’t cry at Ashley’s funeral , but I think it’s because when I sat back and looked at it all—when I looked at all her friends that were there, when I looked at her mom being so strong, when I saw Kelsey smiling with her friends, when I shoke her best friends hand and she greeted me with a smile, when I laughed with all my cousins, when I saw my nieces & nephews running around & playing—I knew Ashley would have been smiling too.  She was such a great girl and she deserves a smile. 

I have a sneak peek to post, but I think I’m going to wait until tomorrow morning.  I want to give a post to Ashley.  I have two shoots tomorrow, so I will be back tomorrow evening with those sneak peeks.  

Night night :)