April 9, 2013....Dressing Gracie

It wasn't a question when the funeral director asked us if we wanted to be the ones to dress Gracie.  Of course we would.  I would do her hair and get her in her dress as I did each day.  Gracie still wasn't totally independent in dressing herself although she was getting better.  Tami, Jenny, and mom came up to spend the day with the kids while Jeremy and I were going to the funeral home to get Gracie ready.  Gracie had been at the Medical Examiner's until that morning. The last time I saw her was in the hospital when Jeremy handed her over to the Operating Room nurse.  There, at the mortuary, she was laying peacefully on a table in a private room.  It was quiet and the lights were low.  It was so peaceful and seemed as though she were sleeping.  We started to dress her but her body was hard and cold.  She didn't feel like Gracie.  She felt like a porcelain doll and I began to treat her as such.  I was delicate and careful.  As I began to put on her tights I realized she didn't have panties on and I didn't bring any.  I don't know why I expected her to have them.  I brought tights, a dress, bows for her hair, polish for her nails, remover for the old polish, but I didn't think about panties!!  Curtis (the funeral director) just smiled and covered her with a small cloth and assured me she didn't need them as we pulled the tights up over her bottom.  To this day I'm still bothered she doesn't have panties on.  I know there are some women who don't wear panties with tights but we are just not those kind of women!  I think she would think it was funny she is "going commando". 

A friend had offered for her aunt to come do molds of our hands with Gracie's but they were running late.  When I told Curtis (the funeral director) I could sense he was a bit stressed.  We would need to be in an area with water....I actually wanted water to better do Gracie's hair which meant we would have to move her to the downstairs kitchen.  It wasn't as peaceful and I could tell Curtis was concerned about it but I didn't care.  I was about functionality....ambiance was not a factor for me. Once we were down in the kitchen Jeremy went to work removing the old nail polish from Gracie's nails.  As he did this, her skin began to slough off.  He was upset by this and was oh so careful not to touch the skin.  I called Chelsea to let her know the molds wouldn't work.  She had lost her daughter who was barely a year younger than Gracie when she was 18 months old.  She knew skin could be an issue and understood it couldn't be done.  I started on Gracie's hair.  I wanted to do pigtails but they just weren't working out smooth enough.  I was much better at blowing her hair out with a round brush but I worried about hurting her or her skin around her hair line. I decided to round brush it anyway the way I always did for church or pictures.  It was much easier and looked so much better.  I couldn't believe how long her hair had gotten in just a couple months or maybe it just looked so much longer laying down.  Jeremy finished the polish and Curtis commented how he had never seen a Dad do his daughter's nails. How could this happen to him?  To us?  Of anyone, Jeremy is the most watchful, vigilant, protective to the point of obsessive and annoying.  I needed people to know this of him.  I knew it with everything in me.  This was nothing he could've prevented....would he ever truly believe this? 

I was able to leave my Gracie in Curtis's care because I knew we would see her tomorrow.  I felt her spirit with me and knew she had been watchful of what was happening.  Tami told me she had a dream where Gracie asked her why they were putting her body in a fridge.  Tami didn't know what this meant.  I knew immediately.  Gracie was at the medical examiner and she would've been in a fridge.  Her spirit was present, watchful, inquisitive. This was no surprise to me of my girl.

On the drive home I got a call from Jenny who was watching the kids with Tami.  Jenny said a news reporter had come to the door asking questions of the accident.  They wanted a picture of Gracie and to interview us.  Jenny told him "No comment" and closed the door but he was going door to door.  I later heard that neighbors had started to call and warn each other. Some obviously didn't get the call and others just couldn't resist.  It's hard because people say hurtful things without meaning to.  Of course you do when you're caught off guard.  One neighbor said, "Well you just have to watch your children" and then tried to correct himself, "I mean, these parents do but you just....." too late, the damage was done asshole.  This was the first time I realized I had been bracing myself for when the shock and compassion would fade and the blame would begin.  Was it happening already? To my relief and surprise we pulled into our subdivision with pink bows tied around every tree and mailbox.  Those women have no idea how much that meant to us at that exact moment.