Funeral Plans

A few other family members, as well as the hospice nurse, showed up at Rochelle and Scott’s shortly after Mom passed away.  I remember being frustrated by the late arrival of the nurse because I thought hospice was supposed to be there to help during the process, not to arrive after the fact.  We later learned the nurse was with another terminally ill patient and she simply could not be two places at the same time.  This was understandable but I was still trying to comprehend what really just happened.  The hospice nurse contacted the funeral home in Gretna as well as the Sarpy County Sheriff.  When there is a death in the home it has to be investigated.  The investigation was expedited given this was a hospice situation.  The Sarpy County Sheriff was very kind and compassionate.  He filled out the paperwork and left. 

 

Two gentlemen from the Gretna funeral home arrived to take Mom’s body.  Rochelle and Scott’s neighbors entertained the kids at their homes during this process.  The adults went to the basement and we came back upstairs after they left.  It was so surreal. When we came upstairs it hit me that Mom was gone.  While I knew she was gone, I found myself walking in each room upstairs imagining Mom being in that room as she had in the past.  We knew her soul was in heaven but it really sunk in that she was physically gone. 

Mom was such a planner and her organization rubbed off on us.  Our planning mode kicked into high gear.  We started making plans for Mom’s funeral.  Monsignor Witt was available on Wednesday, October 17^th as was the funeral home so that is the date we chose for the funeral.  We gathered around the kitchen table and started drafting Mom’s obituary.  It almost felt as if we were dreaming and could not wake up.  We should be gathered around the kitchen table with Mom, drinking a cup of coffee, talking about work, kids, family and life but instead we were planning her funeral.  How could this be?

That evening a woman from the Gretna Catholic Church brought supper to the house.  She sat down and visited with us and she offered her condolences.  When she left, we moved Mom’s recliner back to the basement and put the living room back to how it was on August 31, 2012 when Mom and Dad first arrived to Gretna.  We sat in the living room and just talked.  There was a terrible sense of sadness but there was also an overwhelming sense of peace.  It was hard knowing Mom was gone but we were thankful the fight was over.  It is no fun to see your loved one endure pain and suffering.  We believe Mom was as comfortable as she could have been and that brought us comfort.  It was strange looking around the room and not seeing Mom. 

Once we finished Mom’s obituary the funeral home called to confirm the 10:00 a.m. meeting with them at the funeral home in McCook on Sunday, October 14, 2012.  There was a lot to get done.  We started doing laundry and packing.  We planned on staying at the farm until the Sunday after the funeral so we could spend as much time with Dad.  I was already dreading leaving him at the farm by himself after the funeral.  Dad had been with family for 42 days so the thought of leaving him alone was a very sad thought. 

We didn’t get to bed until after midnight and the plans were to leave Gretna by 5:00 a.m. on Sunday.  We made plans to stop by Mom and Dad’s house to pick out an outfit and jewelry for Mom before our 10:00 a.m. meeting with the funeral director.  We were exhausted both physically and mentally.  We were running on next to no sleep and we were emotionally drained. 

As soon as my head hit the pillow I started having flashbacks from the last 24 hours.  I cried and cried knowing I would never get to hug her, call her, turn to her for advice or even tell her “see you later.”  It was so hard and it still is.  Josh and I slept on the futon that night because the boys were already sleeping on the air mattress in the basement by the time we made our way downstairs.  I remember waking up, screaming and Josh was there comforting me telling me it was okay.  I was having a nightmare.  I do not remember the specifics other than I knew Mom passed away and her arm was on my head.  I remember screaming, “Get off me.  Get off me now!”  When I woke up I realized Bryson had crawled into bed with us and it was his arm on my head.  Bryson started crying and I felt terrible.  I did not realize it was Bryson and I did my best to explain to him I had a really bad dream and I apologized over and over and cuddled with him the rest of the night.  I was fearful this was the start of horrific nightmares surrounding Mom’s illness and passing.  It took some time to get back to sleep and next thing I know, the alarm on my phone was going off at 4:00 a.m.

The plan was for Rochelle, Dad and I to leave at 5:00 a.m. and Scott, Josh and the kids would come out later.  Before we loaded the truck, we all three put the purple crystal angels in the rear view mirrors of our vehicles.  We packed up the truck and left town shortly after 5:00 a.m.  As we were pulling out of the driveway, Dad pointed out that “this is the first time I have made this trip without Mom.”  It was hard leaving her behind but once again we reminded ourselves it was only a body and her soul was in heaven.  We knew she was riding shotgun in the truck but we just couldn’t see her. 

Surprisingly the trip from Gretna to Indianola went fast.  We knew we had a lot to get done in only a few days.  The three of us had some really good conversations.  We talked about the good ole’ days, how blessed we were to have gotten extra time with Mom after her bout with cancer in 1993, etc.  We also reminisced about how blessed we were to experience the signs leading up to Mom’s death.  There were also some hard conversations about how much Mom would be missed and leaving Dad alone.  Rochelle and I both told Dad that we would support him 100% should he decide to date and/or marry in the future.  I know Dad appreciated us giving him our blessing but just lost his wife less than 16 hours ago so dating was the furthest thing from his mind. 

We arrived in Indianola just before 9:00 a.m. It was really hard walking into the house for the first time without Mom.  Everything was how we left it on September 23, 2012 after our quick visit home.  Every house has its own smell and the welcoming smell of Mom and Dad’s house was the same as it had always been in the past.  I knew Mom was gone yet I “expected” to see her in her favorite recliner, kicked back, reading a magazine.  Instead, we made a beeline to Mom and Dad’s closet to find something for Mom to wear.  We hadn’t previously talked about it and Mom did not tell us her wishes.  She was more focused on making sure Dad’s suit was ready and that Rochelle and I were mentally ready for what was to come.  She must have trusted us to pick out an outfit and to plan all of the details.  We opted not to plan Mom’s funeral during her illness because we wanted to spend as much quality time with her as possible.

Rochelle and I went through Mom’s closet and we picked out two outfits with coordinating necklaces.  Dad came into the room and we ran our choices by him.  He agreed with our options but he pointed out he wanted Mom to have some earrings to wear.  Mom had a pair of diamond earrings with gold backs.  We all knew Mom kept her earrings and rings in a green antique soap dish in her bathroom.  Rochelle and Dad went to the bathroom to look for the earrings but they could not find them.  I joined them and we dumped out the soap dish and separated everything out.  For the life of us, we could not find the earrings.  We decided we would have to look later otherwise we were going to be late for our meeting at the funeral home.  

We drove to McCook and we were taken to the conference room at the funeral home.  The funeral director was very compassionate and he offered his condolences.  We started by providing a copy of the obituary so they could get it in the McCook Gazette on Monday.  The private family viewing was scheduled for Monday, October 15^th.  The rosary was scheduled to take place on Tuesday, October 16^th at St. Catherine’s Catholic Church and the funeral at 10:30 a.m. on October 17^th at St. Catherine’s. 

We spent a majority of the day at the funeral home making arrangements.  I had no idea there were so many details to planning a funeral.  We compared it to planning a wedding in only three days except the obvious difference is a wedding is a happy event.  We were presented with many options of every possible detail for the funeral.  Dad, Rochelle and I wanted the funeral to reflect the beautiful woman Mom was and the life she lived.  We were able to make unanimous decisions on all of the details.  Autumn was Mom’s favorite time of the year.  It seemed fitting to select a program with all of the vibrant colors of fall for Mom’s Celebration of Life.  

The easiest decision of the day was the poem we selected for the inside of the folder.  It was the very first poem and it was extremely relevant to Mom’s situation. 

God saw you were getting tired

And a cure was not to be…

So He put His arms around you

And whispered, “Come with Me.”

With tearful eyes

We watched you suffer,

And saw you fade away.

Although we loved you dearly,

We could not make you stay.

A golden heart stopped beating,

Hard-working hands laid to rest.

God broke our hearts to prove to us,

He only takes the best.

Rochelle, Dad and I were in tears and we barely made it through the poem the first time.  We loved it so much that we read it over and over.  We could not believe how fitting it was and we knew Mom would be happy with our decisions.  

During our meeting with the funeral director, he asked us whether or not we were interested in putting together a video containing pictures of Mom.  At first we were not sure if this was something we could get done in time but we decided it would be a great keepsake item not only for us but for our children.  That evening we pulled out several photo albums and sorted through a lot of pictures.  I had mixed emotions reminiscing with our family and friends as we were going through the pictures.  The pictures reminded me of all of the fun times we shared but the reality set in that no more memories were going to be made with Mom.  We stayed up well past midnight so we could be sure to get the pictures in chronological order so the video could be completed the following day at the visitation.  

Dad, Rochelle and I had an easy time choosing three songs for the video.  When Rochelle told us her choices, Dad and I acknowledged that those were the songs we were thinking of too. The three songs we chose were “Because You Loved Me” by Celine Dion; “Amarillo By Morning” by George Strait; and “You Raise Me Up” by Josh Groban.  The funeral home did an amazing job with the video and it is a treasured keepsake for our family.  

Below is a copy of Mom’s Life Legacy:   

Nancy Marie (Ogorzolka) Schmidt passed away Saturday, Oct. 13, 2012, in Gretna, Nebraska. She was 56 years old.

Nancy was born on Feb. 21, 1956, to Donald Paul and Nettie P. (Arendell) Ogorzolka. She graduated from Bartley High School with the class of 1974.

On March 24, 1979, she was united in marriage to Leslie L. Schmidt at St. John's Catholic Church in Cambridge. They made their home on a farm north of Indianola. Nancy was an integral part of the farming operation especially during harvest when she helped run the combine. She was also employed at Community Hospital for 33 years.

Family was very important to Nancy. While her daughters where attending college at Doane, Nancy spent hours on the road so she could attend their sporting events. She also enjoyed her four grandchildren. She was a member of St. Catherine's Catholic Church in Indianola and a member of St. Catherine's Altar Society.

Preceding her in death were her parents, Donald and Mariann Ogorzolka and Nettie and Page Voorhees, grandparents Tony and Marie Ogorzolka and father-in-law Clifford Schmidt.

Survivors include her husband, Leslie Schmidt of Indianola, NE; daughter Rochelle and husband, Scott Swanson, granddaughters Anisten and Kardyn of Gretna, NE; daughter Kirby and husband Josh Smith, grandsons Bryson and Holden of Olathe, KS; brothers, Daniel and Nancy Ogorzolka of Fort Collins, CO, Eldon and Carol Ogorzolka of Lincoln, NE, Lloyd and Mary Ogorzolka of Indianola, NE, and Todd and Dee Ogorzolka of Henderson, NE; mother-in-law, Peggy Schmidt of McCook; brother-in-law Brett and sister-in-law Lori Schmidt of McCook, NE and sister-in-law Brenda (Schmidt) and brother-in-law Troy Hinz of Clayton, IN and numerous nieces and nephews and great nieces and great nephews.

Memorials will be given in Nancy’s name to further breast cancer research.

Mass of Christian Burial will be Wednesday, October 17, 2012, 10:30 a.m. at St. Catherine's Catholic Church with Father Thomas McGuire and Msgr. Paul Witt officiating. Burial will follow at St. Catherine's Cemetery in Indianola, Nebraska.

The most emotionally challenging part of planning Mom’s funeral was selecting a casket.  I really dreaded picking out the casket because it made the situation very real. I think it finally hit me we were planning Mom’s funeral when we walked into the casket show room.  I kept having flashbacks of the wonderful memories of shopping with Mom for groceries, clothes for school, prom dresses, wedding dresses, car shopping, house hunting, etc.  It was difficult to be choosing a casket for Mom.  I was at peace but I also had the selfish desire for Mom to be with us, living life on earth.  The funeral director did a great job and the process was not near as bad as I had anticipated.  There were a million other things I would have rather been doing at that moment but that was the situation we were dealt with and we did our best to get through it. 

After we left the funeral home, we drove back to Indianola and met with Father McGuire.  We selected the readings and the songs we wanted for Mom’s funeral.  We also met with Crinda McConville who is an organist for the church.  I walked to her house and met with Crinda and her husband. It was very comforting to visit with them.  They offered wonderful words of peace and comfort.  Crinda is a very talented musician and she did a fantastic job of helping select the music as well as playing the piano during Mom’s funeral. 

We were still running on a lot of adrenaline.  We had a very long, exhausting day but we really did not feel that tired.  We knew it was going to hit us days later but in that moment, we were managing to get by.  Around 8:00 that night, we finally got back to the farm.  We were greeted by several neighbors, family and friends.  Throughout the day, people stopped by to offer their condolences and to provide our family with food.  We had so much love and support it was truly overwhelming in a very good way.  Mom was loved by so many and our little community came together and provided our family with more support than we could have ever imagined.  I have said it before but the people of Indianola and surrounding areas are amazing!  

Scott, Josh and the kids stayed at the farm during the day while Rochelle, Dad and I were planning the funeral.  The guys did a great job of welcoming guests and entertaining the kids.  Dad and Mom always said how blessed they were to have such wonderful son-in-laws.  Rochelle and I are so thankful to be blessed with loving, supportive husbands. 

That evening, several of Mom’s co-workers stopped by the house.  One of Mom’s co-workers told us Mom had gathered some of her personal belongings and basically cleaned up her computer (on what ended up being Mom’s last day at the hospital) as if she knew she would not be returning to work.  Mom had very strong intuition and she was a planner.  I was taken back when I heard this because that proved to me that Mom believed there was something going on that would not allow her to return to work.  I am sure she remained hopeful that she would be able to return but in the chance she wouldn’t be able to go back, she wanted things in line for the person who would take over her responsibilities.  We also learned from another co-worker that Mom struggled to navigate on her computer during her final days at her job.  Mom was very well rounded with her tasks so the fact she was having trouble accessing basic items on her computer was troubling.  Hearing this broke my heart over again because I failed to recognize how ill Mom really was.  It upset me to think of the mental agony Mom likely went through right before and during her terminal diagnosis. 

Once our guests left, we took a little time to talk with Scott and Josh about the funeral plans.  We talked about how busy our day was at the funeral home and we informed them of all of the decisions we made regarding the funeral.  We also expressed disappointed that we could not find the pair of diamond earrings for Mom.  We shared the story about how we looked for them but could not find them.  Scott did not believe us that we could not find the earrings. He asked us if we looked in the green soap dish “because that is where Nancy always kept her jewelry.”  We explained how all three of us looked but they were not found.  Scott said, “They have to be there.”  He walked into Mom’s bathroom and returned to the living room—with the earrings in his hand.   He said, “You mean these earrings?”  We asked him where he found them and he said they were in the green soap dish in Mom’s bathroom.  We could not believe it!  The earrings were not there that morning when Dad, Rochelle and I looked before the meeting at the funeral home.   We put the earrings on the counter so we could remember to take them to the funeral home the following day. 

Around 2:00 in the morning, we decided it would be a good idea to get Dad’s suits together so we didn’t have to hassle with it the following day.  Dad and I went to the closet to find his suits and we found the tan colored suit with the shirt and tie, however, we could not find his black pants that went with his black suit.  We kind of panicked at first but then we reminded each other of the warning Mom previously gave Rochelle.  At the time, we figured that was Mom’s way of telling Rochelle she knew she was going to die (which is partially true) but it was almost as if she was trying to tell us the suit wasn’t complete. We searched the closet high and low and we could not find the pants.  We were not sure what we were going to do.  The following day was booked solid with more funeral plans and the private family viewing that evening.  We did not have time to find another pair of pants to match the jacket for the funeral.  We agreed we were exhausted and thought we would look for them in the morning.  We had plans to call the cleaners and Garrison’s in McCook the following morning to see if Mom had previously dropped off the pants and forgot to pick them up. 

The next morning, I woke up and headed back to Mom and Dad’s room.  I wanted to see if Dad was awake so we could start getting ready for another busy day.  I was so sad when I glanced in the room and there was Dad, alone in the bed.  I felt sick.  I did not want to leave Dad alone.  I hated the thought of Dad being alone.  He is an independent man but he and Mom did everything together.  I knew Dad would make the best out of it but I also knew there were going to be a lot of tears shed and a terribly broken heart that may never be mended.  

Later on that morning, the three of us went to McCook to pick out flowers for the funeral.  As we were flipping through the book we chuckled at some of the choices.  We could hear Mom say, “That looks like it belongs at a funeral.”  We knew we wanted something that didn’t look like it should belong at a funeral.  We found a beautiful fall arrangement.  It contained sunflowers as well as a variety of orange, yellow and purple flowers.  It was vibrant and it definitely did not look like it “belonged at a funeral.”  We knew Mom would be thrilled with our choice.  After we met with the florist, we stopped by the cleaners in hopes of finding Dad’s pants.  Unfortunately they could not find them.  We walked across the street to Garrison’s to see if Mom possibly dropped them off for altering.  Needless to say, the mystery continued.  As we were going through Dad’s closet the night before, we found a navy suit.  It looked nice on Dad but he really wanted to wear his black suit.  Due to our schedule and upcoming funeral, we did not have time to get another suit together for Dad.  We went home and he tried on the navy suit and we all agreed he looked great in it.  To this day, we have yet to find the black pants.

We spent the rest of the day at home visiting with family and friends.  We prepared ourselves because the following day we would finally get to see Mom at the private family viewing at the funeral home. 

Below are the lyrics and a link to “You Raise Me Up” by Josh Groban.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj8wHfBKoRU 

When I am down and, oh, my soul, so weary;
When troubles come and my heart burdened be;
Then I am still and wait here in the silence,
Until you come and sit awhile with me.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up to more than I can be.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up to more than I can be.

There is no life - no life without its hunger;
Each restless heart beats so imperfectly;
But when you come and I am filled with wonder,
Sometimes, I think I glimpse eternity.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up to more than I can be.

You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up to more than I can be.

You raise me up to more than I can be.