Mom's Final Celebration

This post is in honor of Mom's final, earthly celebration!!! Many of our family and friends were not able to attend, so I hope this post will allow them to see a little bit of what we experienced on that day. --She fought long and hard for 14+ years, it was finally her time to go Home! Mom started her long illness back in 1994, beginning with breast cancer. It was just a month or so before Jerry and I were married, that she had a double mastectomy and said good-bye to cancer (or so she thought). She was so worried about how she would look for our wedding and what people would think of her wig. We told her "don't worry about what other people think, you look great and you are beating this cancer thing"! We called her first wigs, her "Elvis" wigs because they looked liked some of Elvis' hair-do's : ) We've sure had fun over the years modeling in those silly wigs, and were sure ready to say good-bye to them as her hair began to grow back. She ALWAYS hated wearing her wig, along with her glasses, her teeth and so on. She just didn't think they needed to be a part of her "ward-robe" 24/7, LOL! --Her cancer went into full remission until 9 years later and then she ended up getting it in her back, which was very painful for her. She then was in remission again, until March of 2006. At this point, she was told she had liver cancer and that with treatment she had a 1-3 years chance of living. She loved life and loved living, so she started back on the chemo once again. She continued her treatment until just a few months ago when she started to become more and more sick and more and more weak. The doctor told her he was going to take her off of it and give her a break, I think that was his way of saying the treatments were no longer going to help (of course that is just my thinking). She did start to feel some better and was starting to eat a little bit more, but then she started taking a turn for the worse. There was at least one other time in July that we were told to "come home quick, Mom isn't doing well", and then she snapped out of it again and seemed to be doing some better. She was a fighter, she was so strong and wanted to keep living! It was on the weekend of my niece's wedding (July 26th), that we received another call saying; "Mom isn't doing well again, don't put your coming home off too long". We then jumped in the car and headed to MI, that evening. When we arrived, sure enough, Mom was not doing well at all. We all expected her to live only a few days, but...she started fighting again and lived over a week beyond what we expected. I am SO THANKFUL for being able to be with her, for her final week! As I look back on it, it was only God that helped us through that week, it was a very LONG and stressful week! She kept us all entertained in her final days, by saying cute things such as: "I want pickles", "I sure did give you lots of spankin's when you were little", "I want to go home, where's Dad?", "he must be building something" (when she heard Dad pounding a hammer against the wall). She sang with us and we sang to her, over and over as she seemed to like it, she even clapped her hands for us once : ) All in all, I am thankful that the Lord allowed me to be there for her and He knows I did my BEST in caring for her! Yes we will all miss her, but we are thankful that she is no longer in pain and she is in the presence of Jesus! We love you Mom and hope you enjoyed your final celebration! --We would like to thank everyone that was able to join us for this celebration, it meant a lot to us to know you were there and cared! Also, we still have a site up in Mom's honor, if you wish to post a comment in the "guest book", you may. Go to: lmshattuck.com.

Mom, you looked so nice! Dad was so proud of the way you looked for your celebration!

The kids and Dad seeing Mom for the first time after she passed away.
Dad saying his final good-bye to his bride of 54 years!

Dad & Mom with us kids:

L to R: Mary, Doug, Darlene, Janiece & Shirley

All of us kids sang at her celebration; "I'm Too Near Home"!

Some of the grand kids and 11 of the great-grandchildren sang "Jesus Loves Me", this was the last song she sang with us!

Dad wanted all of his grandsons to carry the casket. Since Keegan and Maverick were too little to actually do any carrying, the funeral director suggested that Keegan lead the casket and that Maverick be carried next to it.

All ready to head to the cemetery. She was laid to rest at the Salt River Cemetery, in Shepherd. Dad was the care-taker for 20 years at this cemetery so it was
neat to be able to lay her to rest there.

Mom's final resting place

The "casket bearers" were: Tim Petty, Bob Petty, Chris Petty, Joe Petty, Nick Petty, Talon Cooper, Keegan Cooper, Maverick Baker and Mark Bendele (a close family friend).

I am a "details kind of gal", so I wanted these pictures so
I could remember the details on Mom's casket.
Dad did a wonderful job in picking the casket out!

We allowed the kids to pick some flowers from the bouquets. They all thought it was great that they got to have some of Nana's special flowers!

We realized the night of the viewing that Mom's name was spelled wrong on the programs. They had it spelled Marilyn and it is Maryln. I made a mistake and told them that it didn't have an "I" in it, so they just dropped the "I" and didn't correct it : ( Needless to say, it was too late for them to correct it on the cover for the casket. Oh well, that is the way it goes.