Feeling Loved and Supported!

I wanted to take a minute and just say how overwhelming loved Jacob and I have felt in the past year. We knew we had great families that were supportive of us, and good friends who cared for us, but we had NO idea how many people would shower us with love and prayers. One of the benefits of sharing my story publicly is that so many of you are lifting us up in prayer, sending us emails and cards, and letting us know how much you care!

A year ago tomorrow, we held Kinley's memorial service. We were completely overwhelmed and shocked at the number of people who came to the service! I can't remember the exact number, but it was somewhere between 250 and 300 people that showed up to support us. For a baby who never took a breath on this earth and never met most of those people at the service, it was an amazing turn-out! If you were one of those people that were there for us, thank you from the bottom of our hearts!!!!! It meant more than you could ever know!

On Friday, we celebrated Kinley's first birthday and had about 30-35 people join us to let balloons go at the cemetery. In addition, we heard from many more who were holding their own remembrance celebrations! We're so very thankful!!!! Kinley was blessed to have grandparents, aunts, uncles, (and great aunts and uncles), cousins, and friends who loved her enough to be there to help her Mommy and Daddy get through the day. Thank you so much to all of you!!!

In addition, while I'm thinking about the memorial service, I want to make a quick plug for the funeral home that helped us with Kinley's burial arrangements. The Covington Sunset Funeral Home's general manager drove all the way to Lafayette to handle our arrangements. On the day he came to meet with us, he was also supposed to take McKinley's body with him. The hospital could not release her body until I was released from the hospital, and I was just not ready to say goodbye. Drew Edwards busied himself in Lafayette for hours waiting for me to be ready to leave Kinley. It is not easy to think about sending your babies body with someone you don't really know, but he made me feel so at ease and I KNEW that he would take the very best care of Kinley. He treated her like a living, breathing baby and I'm so very thankful!

We had things that we wanted to be have put in the casket with Kinley, so my Mom was going to stop by the Danville Chapel to drop off all those things and take a few pictures of Kinley in the casket with all of her stuff. When she arrived, they had her wait a few moments and then took her in to a giant empty room where they had set up a beautiful little display with Kinley's casket, just for my Mom.

Both Drew Edwards and Linda Darby-Sempsrott were there for the burial service and were kind, caring, and loving to us all. We felt their truest and deepest sympathy in the way they handled the entire situation. In addition, often times when a child passes, funeral homes will do some of the things for free. In this case, they went above and beyond what was expected....from providing balloons to release, a guest book to sign, and laminated copies of her obituary, all the way down to Kinley's pink casket!!!

I know that no one really wants to think about needing to use funeral services, but I would highly recommend that if you live in the Danville, IL/Covington, IN area, you check into Sunset funeral home!! The death of a loved one is NEVER easy, but when you're handled with care and compassion it does make the planning process so much easier! Thank you, thank you, thank you Sunset!!!

(By the way, Sunset has no idea I'm saying all this and I'm in no way getting anything for "promoting" them! Just for the record!)