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Hi Cassie.
You lost your husband the same day I lost my dad. I'm so sorry. We have a connection right now and I know we can understand exactly how the other feels.
We're using a place in Turlock also, but can't for the life of me remember the name. Is that aweful? Very pretty though.
I just kept looking for the perfect place and since we were from the Bay Area I wanted his friends and past co-workers to be able to go to at least a viewing. That didn't even work out. We're all so broke! He had over 40k in free life insurance just through the VA that could have helped and the paperwork is still setting in a the bedroom and hadn't been signed or sent. He only became rated 100% service connected in April. Then my mom passed away the 22nd of that month and even though she had life insurance there were expenses. The on our way home from my mom's service I got a call that my dad was in a hospital in Oklahoma and no expected to make it and passed away 2 days later. We rented a car and then there were more expenses. We had been struggling for quit a while before Bill's rating had gone through and he was paying off old debts, so we could buy a house in a few months.
I had started to apply for SSDI a month or two ago, but since all of my strokes and some other problems, like I depended on Bill to even leave the house. I break down crying when I try to hold a conversation and can't find the words. I read some of my posts on here and other places and some just seem rediculously ignorant. I went from being concidered above intelligence to being luck I don't drool. much. Bill was also on SSDI, but I'm not eligable to collect his benifits until I'm 60 unless I'm also collecting SSDI myself. One of my daughters made an appointment for me to go to SS this month and they said they can pull all of my medical records to help me apply, but I have so little faith in them I'm not holding my breath. It took my mom 10 yrs to collect after breaking her back.
We tried to make arrangments for the viewing today, but No One could get enough off of a credit card to pay for it. Even trying to work around costs, we just can't do anything. All we can do is have them get him ready for burial and then hold the ceremony at the cemetary. No open casket, no viewing, people are so upset that they can't help and won't be able to see him one more time. He has some awesome friends in the Bay and they were like his family way before I met him. They're not in good shape financially either, so I know it's killing them to not be able to help.
His casket is beautiful............that is if they except it. I think it is on armyfunerals.com although there is one just like it on
www.veterancaskets.com. The one we are hoping they except also comes with a package, that is very nice. We do have expenses, like the casket and a few other things like the mortuary etc. It's not cheap that's for sure.
I can't find his pictures! We moved here in March and with everything that has happened, we were just too tired and also lacking the space to get most of our things out of storage. It's packed and I have no idea where anything is. It takes me for ever to find my shoes, let alone were he could have possibly put his things. He never marks anything that's his. But then again I have always told everyone that Bill can find the "needle in the haystack". I've never seen anything like it and probably never will again.
Theres another picture. We're actually friends with a couple of his ex-girlfriends and he had a lot of female friends. We all love a picture of him at Fort Bragg where muscles bulged from cammies. LOL. I told him I may have even gone out with him when I was younger if I had seen him looking like that. hehe.................can't find it either or the pics of him and his family in PA 4 yrs ago. He hadn't been back in yrs and it was the first time I had met one of his kids, his youngest daughter April. He also go to meet his then youngest granddaughter Haleigh??? Geez I forget how to spell it. Irish spelling.
My oldest daughter bought the box for his flag and it has a section for his awards and his picture. He had very few pictures of himself in the service and I haven't seen them in a few years, so I really have no idea how I'll locate them. I love the picture of him when he graduated from bootcamp and want to use it display, but I can't find it. My youngest daughter had just moved back home and Bill was going to help her with school, so she could become a Surgical RN or Tech and he was gone the next morning. She has a friend that makes these beautiful memorial booklets instead of the little memorium type flyers that get tossed away. Since his family won't be attending it will be nice for them to get these for each of their members. My daughter isn't working or getting any type of aid, so this is the part of the expense that she wants to do.
I need to be finishing his obituary, but I can't make it short enough to have printed. I could write a book and seem to be oing that at this moment.
We did go to Santa Nellis and see the cemetary there. To tell you the truth it made me sad there. I felt like I was sending him out into nowhere and he would be forgetten. My kids saw how depressed I was there and we turned around and went to Dixon. The Sacramento Valley National Cemetry is so much more the type of place he would like. We have both love the one in San Bruno, but since we have a choice of only two now, I was happy to see the new one. San Joaquin Vally has flat markers and I looked around and asked where they people that stayed there were. Sacramento Valley has upright markers and it's only been there for 4 yrs. They are so busy these days that ceromonies are only allowed to last 30 minutes. That seems soooooo fast! The landscape and design was so nice and close to each other rather that spread out all over. They are only now working on the first section and Bill will be placed just as you enter and near the lobby and they rotunda and water fountains. This place will only get more beautiful as time goes on and I felt really good about the fact that the kids took the time to travel all the way there when I felt the other wasn't what I wanted. Plus it gives me a reason to go to Travis and the Exchange.
He is supposed to be buried in Arlington. I know he deserves to be there, but I don't want him that far away. What I did decide was that when it's my time to go, they will move him there and we'll be buried together. I'm selfish I know, but I need to visit him and talk to him and I'll never make it to Arlington to do that. I need him here. Bill's family in all back in PA and his sister said that none of them are really able to travel and so for me to send him closer to them wouldn't make a difference as for someone visiting him as often as possible. She also said that his family already loved and honored him and they didn't need to go there to change that. She also said that he loved me so much and she knew how much I love him that I was his "choosen family" and I needed to keep him close. That made me feel so good. Even if you know you have you soulmate, sometimes you wonder if it's just the way you feel and maybe the other doesn't really feel the same way. He said that's what we were and from what I keep hearing he told everyone he knew the same thing. I guess I just don't feel very good about myself, so I wondered if he felt stuck.
He enjoyed so much of my culture and when I made a prayer feather for my niece's mom he liked it so much I told him I'd make one for him. That was the same time we were losing the house and I have only started pulling out beads and things to work on just recently. I'm making one for him and I hope to start it tomorrow, so I can get it done fast. Just beading a flag on the quil, but I think it will be fine.
There are so many posts on this thread I'm just overwhelmed. I keep wiping away tears, but I'm going to try to read some of them now. Thank you to all of you for being so kind.
And yes I will probably post something long and drawn out again very soon.
OH............the 23rd will be our 11 year anniversary. I wanted to spend it with him one more time, so that's the day of his services.
also........got the results from the Coroner. He had stages of Cardio Vascular Disease and they said his heart simply stopped. You could tell he was gritting in pain and trying to get it to ease up. He looked somewhat relaxed, but the more we thought about it, my youngest daughter and I realized that except his mouth, he was trying to just relax and afterwards the muscles relaxed a little more which made it seem like he almost just closed his eyes and left. I found him 2 1/2 hours after he should have been at his blood draw, so we could find out why he was starting to feel so bad.
You know I was so worried that once his rating had gone through and increased that something horrible was going to happen. I even told him that. He said I worry to much. First my mom, then my dad and then Bill. And that rating is nothing. Most of it is going to be nonexistant now and I've lost all three of them. Maybe it's me. It couldn't be anyone else. Everyone is gone. I just don't get it. We've been through so much the past few years and just when Bill said he saw the light at the end of the tunnel for us..............there's no more us.
