Fort Snelling Service

This morning was the internment service for both my mother and my grandfather. Grandpa Rosenfelt passed away last August and Mom's death came just 5 months later. Both were cremated which is why we had some time to wait to do the internment. Those who serve in the military and their spouses are allowed to be buried at a national cemetary. Grandpa Rosenfelt served in the army (I believe). Mom was never in the military, but Dad served in the navy. That's why we were able to do her burial there as well.

As you probably read from my previous post, there are a lot of people buried at Fort Snelling National cemetary. They do many burials every day so they don't allow for long services. They have a very specific way it all works. We drove to a designated place and then a car came to lead us to the place where we would do the service. The Memorial Rifle Squad was there and shot off their guns in salute to Grandpa's military service, they presented a flag to Grandma and a bugler played taps. After that part was finished, Pastor Bert shared some scripture and prayed with us. Fort Snelling only allows 15 minutes to pack everything in. It was short, but I understand that it's a logistics thing. Even with understanding that, it still seemed hard to really wrap my brain around what was really happening.

I took lots of pictures so I could have some memories of today. I don't have any from the memorial service and I feel bad about that, but I would have felt strange taking pictures, too.

I'm looking forward to being able to go back once the grave stone is placed (it wasn't there today) and spending some time processing everything.

I had explained, to Ethan, a little bit of what was going to happen today. I described a cemetary as a place where people go to think about and remember their friends and family who died. Everything happened so fast today that Ethan wasn't sure what to think. But he did say something that was really sweet. We were getting ready to leave and he said, "I want to think about Grandma". He was really distressed that we hadn't talked more about her so I was able to tell him 2 stories about Grandma.

The first thing I told him was how Grandma was so excited when he was born that she came to the hospital right away the next day and since she couldn't hold him right away, she printed off some pictures that Nathan had posted on our website and she hugged those pictures instead! The other story I told him was about how Grandma was supposed to bring Brian to work one day. She ended up making a wrong turn at a detour and getting completely lost. Brian had to call in to work to say that his "transportation was unreliable" and Grandma decided drive to Chanhassen to see us instead so she could spend time with Ethan. She thought that would be a good way to try to make it up to Brian!

Here are some pictures from today.

Some of the group gathered at Dad's before driving to Fort Snelling.

The Memorial Rifle Squad

This woman is thanking Grandma, "on behalf of the President" for Grandpa's service.

Pastor Bert leads the internment service.

Audrey and I hanging out at Dad's before the service.

Audrey and I with the posse.

Mom's "homeys"The family

Ethan and Audrey and missing Mom

I haven't really posted anything lately because I haven't known what to say. I feel like the initial crisis is behind me. I'm slowly adjusting to my new "normal". Maybe it's just in my head, but it seems quieter.

I know that whatever I feel is normal and fine. Sometimes I think that maybe I should feel a little more sad. It's been harder and easier than I would have imagined. I've said this before, I think, but the hardest part is missing the daily phone call where we would just talk about life and she would want to know everything about the kids. Everything they did and said, she wanted to hear it. Ethan and Audrey are sick again and I know that if she had been around, she would have loved to come and rock Audrey and read stories to Ethan and snuggle him at nap time.

There are some fun stories that I'm not sure I've mentioned.

This one I know I haven't mentioned earlier. Yesterday, Audrey was sitting in my lap when I was sitting at the computer. I brought up a picture of Mom and she smiled, got excited, and started gesturing and pointing and babbling at it. It made me so happy. I know she wont remember Mom for much longer, but it sure seemed like she knew she was looking at a picture of one of the people who loves her most.

Also, on Friday, Ethan told me, out of the blue, that I could pray to Jesus. I asked him what I should pray about. He said, "Anything you want." I think he may be on to something there.

Finally, shortly after Mom passed away, I was explaining to Ethan that Grandma Henning was in Heaven with Jesus because she loved Jesus and had asked Jesus into her heart. Ethan replied by shouting out, "Jesus in my heart!". I'm not sure if that was his 2 year old understanding of asking Jesus into his heart, it might have been. If my mom knew that her death would be the thing that caused Ethan to put his trust in Jesus, I know she would have gladly accepted the assignment.