Funneral Plans

Planning a funeral has to be one of the most surreal experiences that the average person goes through.  Exactly the time that you are most emotionally impacted, you have to plan an event that will cost thousands of dollars.  Despite the bad rap that the funeral home industry sometimes suffers, everyone I dealt with was very kind, professional, and genuinely cared about my best interests both emotional and financial.

Given the fact that this would be a closed casket service and that we had no burial plans, I decided to have Sara's body shipped to DFW and then cremated after the service.  I felt that this would be a good balance between the everyone's need for closure, and the cost of the this whole event.  I spoke to Sarah's parents and our kids about this before making the final decision.

One thing that I did early on was to identify some good pictures of Sarah for the funeral and for the media to use.  All the articles about her disappearance and death had used the pictures from the search and rescue team, which may have been the most recent but weren't exactly the most flattering.  After looking through the pictures stored on my computer, I selected the picture I wanted everyone to remember her by.

I've always loved this simple candid shot of Sarah holding Laura.  The lighting, expression, and smile on Sarah's face is how I will remember her.

Saturday, after dealing with the funeral home and arrangements at the church, I cleaned up the van and the house and waited for Jim, Mari and the boys to arrive.  They didn't get here until after dinner which had been delivered by some of the neighbors.  Jami Stripe had set up a meal train account for our family which was a great blessing.  Seeing all my kids again was a moment where I could finally have some peace.

We made it to church on Sunday and enjoyed the routine and anonymity of dropping the kids off for Sunday School.  I had emailed the children's minister that I didn't want anyone to make a fuss over the kids, and they did a great job welcoming us back.  I spoke to Doug, the lead pastor who would be delivering the Gospel at the memorial, a few days later and expressed my gratitude to the church staff for reaching out to us when we needed them.

The next few days are a blur of errands, editing photos for the slide show, cleaning, phone calls, and meeting relatives.  My parents were here to help watch the kids, but they quickly got tired of everyone being crowded in our home and moved in with some old friends living nearby.  Mari helped coordinate a lot of the back to school logistics for the kids.

By the time that Thursday came around and people started arriving, I thought that I had most things under control.

Packing up

The park rangers had reserved us a room at the park lodge.  I helped David pack up the campsite and took the kids to where we could get some rest.  Once the little boys hit the mattress, they fell sound asleep.  Laura took a bath and lay down next to them, but she had trouble actually sleeping because she was thinking about what had happened.

I had the same problem as Laura, my mind was going non stop over what happened and what was going to happen in the days to come.  I decided that given how many people on Facebook were messaging me, the quickest and simplest way to get the word out was to make a post with the bad news.  I attached several pictures and included a brief synopsis of the circumstances of her death as I understood it at the time.  I had no idea how far and wide this post would travel.

Shortly after I made my post, I saw a picture that my mother had taken of Clint an Patrick hugging and crying after my phone call.  That's when I lost it and the tears came.  I cried for about 30 minutes at the thought of my boys suffering so far away.  I feel blessed that they were with my parents who love them so much.

The next morning, I was up as soon as there was enough light to see. I had to start making phone calls to Texas.  As I stood on the walkway outside of the hotel room talking on the phone I saw a elk cow walking through the parking lot nibbling on the bushes.  When Laura woke up a few minutes later, I brought her out and showed her the elk and two mule deer doe.  That's when I turned around and saw the Grand Canyon for the first time since I was 10.  In the first light of day it is truly spectacular.  I was struck by the dichotomy of the canyon's beauty and the fact that it had taken Sarah from me.

One of the blessings through this ordeal is the fact that my responsibility to my children keeps me from dwelling on sadness or grief.   The boy needed to be fed, the van needed to be packed, the campsite needed to be broken down, and my phone kept buzzing.  David was a great help in all of this time, Linda watched the kids while David and I cleaned up the campsite.  At this point I discovered that just because a loved one is dead, they can still aggravate you.  I always hated how Sarah over packed for these trips and I hated the stupid bicycle trailer that no one ever used.  I gave the bike trailer to the park rangers hoping they can put it to good use.  I finally managed to get the van doors closed after throwing away a bunch of unused food, dirty dishes, and other junk.

Once we were all packed up, we headed to Flagstaff where we would meet Lawrence and make arrangements with the funeral home to care for Sarah's body.  We ate lunch, meet with the mortuary, and found a playground to let the little boys have some fun.  At this point I got a phone call from the funeral director who told me that the condition of my wife's body would mean that the funeral would have to be a closed casket.  I felt bad because I thought the kids would need the closure of seeing their mother one last time, but this was not to be.

We met Lawrence, dropped off his rental car and hit the road.  It was already late but I was anxious to get the kids home to familiar surroundings.  We drove though the night, driving and sleeping in shifts.  We crossed through Albuquerque in the middle of the night, ate breakfast in Amarillo, and pulled into our driveway just before noon.  We were home, but the real journey was just beginning.

Two weeks

Two weeks.

Two weeks since I got the phone call that upended my life.  Two weeks since I became a widower. Two weeks since I became a single dad to five kids.  Two weeks of running non stop making funeral and back to school arrangements.  Two weeks since my old life ended and this new one began.  After two weeks, I finally have some time to think and begin to process what happened.

My wife died while hiking in the Grand Canyon with my daughter and nephew.  They were descending to the river to camp overnight and hike back up the next day.  By the time they made it most of the way to the bottom, the temperature had climbed to 107F, they had run out of water and Laura began feeling dizzy.  I'm sure Sarah instantly recognized the symptoms of heat exhaustion and her medical training kicked in.  What Sarah didn't realize is that if Laura was in the early stages of heat exhaustion, the she was too.

With her mental functions and judgment compromised by the heat, she decided to leave the children in a shaded and safe spot near the trail and rush to the campsite only a mile ahead to get water and some help.  She left her backpack at a trail intersection to lighten her load.  Sarah met another hiker who was beginning his trip up and out of the canyon and she told him where the kids were.  He told her to stay put and he would go get the kids, but for some reason she continued onward toward the camp.  After she crossed the river on the black bridge she made a wrong turn off the trail and up into a side canyon where she succumbed to the heat.

The other hiker found the kids, gave them water, and escorted them into camp.  When the kids arrived with no sign of Sarah, search and rescue was notified.  However, by that time it was already getting dark at the bottom of the canyon and they couldn't do anything till first light.  The rangers at the campground took care of the kids till the next day.

I got a phone call from the NPS search team the next morning asking me for details that they needed to begin their search which set in motion about 72 hours of nonstop activity.  I clocked out of work and raced home to pack a bag, then headed straight to the airport making phone calls to key people along the way.  I caught the next flight to Phoenix where I would rent a car.  I called Sarah's brother, Evan's dad, my parents, and spoke to our oldest Clint on my way to the airport.

When I landed in PHX and turned on my phone, I had several messages and got a phone call from our neighbor.  Apparently Sarah's disappearance had made the local news and reporters were on our front lawn.  I asked her to keep an eye on the house.  I called the park ranger who had been designated to contact the family and told her that I had just landed and would be driving up as soon as possible.  She said that they would be waiting at the campground for me.  At this point I knew that this story wouldn't have a happy ending.  If there hadn't been good news after 24 hours, there wouldn't be any at all, but I wasn't really ready to admit this to myself.

I drove to the campground as fast as I could get away with, and tried to keep up with all the incoming calls and text messages.  By the time I arrived the sun had set and the campground was full of tourists getting ready for bed.  I parked nearby and the park rangers met me with the bad news.  I had been mentally thinking about how I would break the news to the kids on the drive up, but nothing can prepare you for a little girls tears.  Laura's cries were really what broke my heart that evening. I called my parents and told Clint and Patrick over the phone.  My final call that evening was to Sarah's parents.

Two weeks since my whole world changed.

This was the last photo Sarah took at 2:01 pm August 1st, 2017