Preparations

People have been telling me that they can’t read our blog without crying. So here are some funny stories. I can’t tell you about the memorial without telling you the funny things that happened as we made our preparations. We had a week to prepare for the memorial and Christmas was sandwiched in between. We didn’t want to spend the whole time running around like headless chooks. We also wanted to enjoy our Christmas with my family who had driven up from Portland.



I wanted to have a tree to symbolize life and hope as we carry on our lives after Kaitlyn's death. Stephanie made beautiful white cards attached to ribbon to hang from the tree. I wanted to invite out guests to write about how God spoke to them through Kaitlyn’s life so that we can keep these testimonies as a keepsake. We drove up and down Number 6 road in Richmond looking for any nursery that was opened this time of the year. At the first nursery about a hundred meters down the drive we passed a run down tin shack. Out of this shack peered two men sitting around a fire in a barrel. I felt like we had driven into another land. We told one of the men that we were looking for a fruit or cherry tree as and as he guided us on the boggy grounds we weaved in and out among saplings and trees. Because it is Winter none of the trees had any foliage and none of the trees were labelled so at times when I asked what kind of tree it was he said he didn’t know. In the end we decided on a magnolia tree. We joke that in the Spring we shouldn’t be surprised if we find lemons growing from our tree.

The magnolia tree is one of my favourite trees. As a child I remember sitting in the back seat of the car and counting the houses with Magnolia trees in the front yard. I could tell which ones were Magnolia trees because they were so straight with their branches pointing up the sky. Some of them would have large budding Magnolias. I also remember the old lady that lived up the road from us who had a beautiful old Port Wine Magnolia in her front yard and as a child thinking when I have my own home that I will have a Magnolia tree planted in the front yard. Well I’m not a child anymore and I own my own Magnolia. We just have to buy a house now!

Since we don’t own our yard where we can plant our Mangolia tree we are going to keep our tree in the pot so we can transport it when we buy our own house. Because we couldn’t trust these nursery owners to tell us anything about these plants I called Aeri and asked her to google Magnolias. She found out that these trees can live in it’s pot for 6-7 years and are quite easy to look after. It was the perfect choice for us since I have not been able to keep any plant given to us over the years alive.





Planning Kaitlyn’s memorial was like planning for a wedding. We had found little frosted cups painted with the words, “Faith”, “Love” and “Hope”. We filled these cups with peanuts in memory of our little peanut and had coloured helium balloons tied in a bouquet as a centre piece on each table.



Kaitlyn’s memorial was a celebration. We held this at the Brock House which overlooks Jericho Beach. I had visited the venue a few days before and the huge windows were draped with tacky Christmas wreaths and the window sills strewn with tacky little plastic Christmas trees and those ugly Pointsettas. Although I had requested that these be removed for the day I was given a the vague promise that they would try but didn’t think it was likely. So on Sunday morning it was nice to walk in and see that the windows and sills were bare and the view unadulterated.


We wanted Kaitlyn’s memorial to be a celebration. We didn’t want a somber funeral so we decided to have fun. With this in mind we asked our guests to wear pink. At first Paul would not agree to this. Not only does my husband not own anything remotely pink, his whole wardrobe consists of navy, black and grey. So of course we had to go shopping on Boxing Day, the busiest day of the year to even step into a mall. We picked up a pink argyle sweater. My husband refused to remove the price tag as he has no intention of keeping this!