Three years ago today I was up at this hour sitting on the veranda, trying to figure out what a mother does on the day of her son's funeral.

It was quiet, Don was still asleep and his sister, Jean, was here.  I was emotionally exhausted.  More so than any other day that week.

Mark's death on that Wednesday morning created a funny type of calm.  Like a terrible storm had happened and we all were looking around surveying the damage that had been left in its wake.

It WAS different that morning.  The house had been freed of all medical equipment.  Housekeeping tasks had been taken care of by our dear friends.  Mark's room no longer had the hospital bed, and his queen size bed had been replaced shortly after he died by our neighbor, Mae, and my good friend Mary LeGrand.  There was food to last for days.  Flowers had been delivered to our house and it smelled glorius.

We had spent the past two days at the funeral home.  When Mark died on Wednesday, we knew that we wanted his funeral time to be able to accommodate as many of his friends as possible.  That is why we had visitation on Saturday.  John was emphatic that Mark not be buried on Tuesday because this was Don's birthday.  John and Don decided Monday would be best because they felt Wednesday would be too far away.  I mentioned Sunday and they said no.  Two days would be too long and they felt that Sunday would give everyone a breather.  I think John also wanted to spare Don the future reminders of a unsettled Father's Day memory of 2007.

Despite that there were people at the house...despite that we were going to go to the funeral home to make arrangements...despite that there were phone calls to make....people to hug...I went and sat on the veranda.  I sat there and cried.

I believed then, and at one point even spoke to Mark about it...that I felt it was important for John to have the final say in everything.  Even though Don and me are Mark's parents, I have always known it was John who Mark loved most of all.  It was John who Mark wanted to please.  I recall cautioning Mark about the dangers and temptations of drugs when he was going into junior high.  "I would never do drugs," he told me.  I told him I was glad that he realized the dangers.  "Yeah, I don't want John kicking my ass," was his reply.

I understood John's thinking in terms of the funeral arrangements.  Yet,as his mother, I could not bear the fact that Mark's body would be up at Kutis, and I would be here at home.  I thought about it,and decided that even though there was not going to be a Sunday visitation, I would spend the day at the funeral home, even if I was alone.  My boy was not going to be in a open room all day by himself.

So, on the veranda I cried.  John came out and I told him that I couldn't bear that Mark would be up there alone, and I would be spending Sunday at the funeral home.  He made the change then and there...there would be Sunday visitation.

I remember feeling as though I was at a wedding....so many people to see, to hug, to talk to.  I never ever felt that I spent enough time with each visitor.  I was so grateful that people who I know very well would come up and tell me who they were.  I guess my disorientation showed.  It remains very much of a fog.

I know I took frequent breaks.  I don't think John or Tabitha ever did.  I know they greeted everybody who came in.  I remember Mark's friends lining up and each giving Don a white rose...from them, from Mark, for Father's Day.  I was so proud of them.  I still think of each of Mark's friends as an extension of him.

I remember planning his funeral.  I remember walking in on John and Mark and being told to leave the room.  They were working out the particulars.  Mark stressed over who should be his pallbearers.  He wanted everyone and in the end, picked two of his friends from early, early childhood, his cousins, and Frankie who he felt would represent his brother.  He was adamant that he didn't want Scott Pope.....he was worried about his grandmother and me.  He wanted Scott in what Mark termed "the audience" to be available to us.  He felt that Scott was just too close to have him do anything else.

I wrote the prayer intentions. When I asked him about who should do readings, etc., he said he wanted Tabby's father and grandfather to read from the Bible and he wanted Coach Gegg to read the intentions.   He hoped that Coach Heyde and Butch Marmon would "say a few things" as well as his brother.  Jeff Schnurbusch came to see us either the day Mark died, or the morning after, and asked if he could speak.  Mark also suggested his Uncle Mike, whom he adored, but said "it may be too hard for him."  Instead, his soulmate, cousin, Mick finished up the eulogies perfectly.

It was a very strange morning.  Getting ready, wanting to look nice for Mark.  Somehow, we got 24 balloons to our house that morning.  I don't know how we did it...just can't remember.  I wanted them for "the party" afterwards at the church.  I wanted something happy for Michael and Danny.

The limo picked us up just minutes after John and Tabby arrived.  Her aunt watched the boys at home during the funeral.

I just remember no one said anything at all on the way to the funeral home.  I worried that John was mad....but now realize that he was just very, very sad.

I remember nothing of that morning at the funeral home.  I only remember riding to the church and John telling us that he couldn't do his speech...that Mark was "well represented."  I struggled with thinking that he felt overshadowed....but in time have come to realize that it was asking too much.  He agreed to share it with us later and allowed us to put it on this website.  It's funny how three years can give one a better understanding of the emotions of a difficult day.

I remember the church was very crowded.  I remember our family putting the Baptismal cloth over Mark's casket.  I remember parts of the Mass, some of the things that happened.  It is still very much a cloud.

What I do recall, is the immense silence in the house that afternoon.  For days, no phone calls.  No visitors.  No tasks to take care of Mark.  Just emptiness.

That emptiness remains.  Three years doesn't make it go away.

I cry every single day.  Every single day.  I think I can make it through, think that things are better...and at some point, if only for 24 seconds, I still cry.  It is selfish...I am just a mom who misses her son.

I play games with myself to keep me amused.  I wonder what would be the first thing I would say to Mark if he were to call or walk in the front door.  I remember one time when I didn't think he would be home for my birthday.  I talked to him and he was on his way to the Giacosa Golf Discount in Memphis to pick up some clubs that had been delivered there.  He told me he was mad he couldn't come home but that he had made arrangements to get home later in the month.  We talked a few minutes, and then he had to go.  I went in to take a shower and cried and cried.  Then I told myself to snap out of it...he was happy, healthy...and isn't that the important thing?   I dried off, got dressed, did my hair, makeup and walked out of the bathroom.  Put my clothes down the laundry chute and went into the kitchen.  There, leaning against the sink in his classic Mark pose with his classic Mark smirk/smile....was my boy.

Seems everyone, although I am not sure about Don, knew about Mark coming home.  Tabby and John knew.  Mark had stayed at Gene's the night before.  He had been in town an entire 24 hours and I didn't know about it.  I had called him the night before...but of course, on his cell phone.  I never knew any different.

He came in to "help" with my surprise 50th birthday party.  I remember that he left MOST of it to John and Tabby and I don't think they were pleased.   It doesn't matter....it is a memory that I think of often, especially when I hope to find him leaning against that kitchen sink.

Don and I appreciate all the emails, facebook comments, cards, balloons from my balloon girls, visits and trinkets over the past week.  For some reason, that I now have figured out, I just couldn't plan a "Dragonfly Night."

I realized Saturday afternoon, that what I needed most this year was to know that there were people who remembered.  I am a bad one for dates....and the fact that people actually knew that these two days (June 12 and June 13) were important to us, gave me the lift that I needed.  People don't forget.  

Don and I did pretty well at Mass.  Tears didn't flow until the last five minutes and as much as I tried, they wouldn't stop.  Don and I were home alone at 8am, getting ready for Mass.  When Mark's grandfather clock chimed at 8am, we both stopped what we were doing, hugged, and commented that it was "Angel Time."  We had planned to go to the cemetery after church, but decided that the anniversary of Mark's first hour in Heaven should be spent putting flowers on his grave.

I actually hate that we use the silk flowers, but they do last longer.  There was a rose on his headstone.  I have no idea who left it...but I know Mark does and that is all that is important.  We put pretty red silk roses there.

Three years ago I sat on the veranda at 530 thinking.  Today, I am doing the same thing....thinking about the same person I did three years ago.

I miss you so very much, Mark.

There isn't any time of the year that I don't spend a lot of time thinking about Mark.  The time period between Memorial Day and June 13 always leaves me with a heavy heart.

I haven't written here this past week because everytime I try to, I start to cry. This website shouldn't even exist.  It is not right that this is where I come to when I want to put down my feelings when it originally was to be a place to report what Mark did on a particular day.

Believe me, I have spent a lot of time reading the old posts from June 2007.  Those posts always make me cry because I remember so much more than what had been written.  I remember his family taking off work to be with him and us, and the immense love we felt from his friends.

I couldn't bring myself to go to Golf Discount this past week.  We will try again this week.

I miss Mark so much.  I know Don does too.  It has been unusually quiet this weekend.  Don let me sleep most of Saturday.  Sunday we went to the pool, then came back and had a nice dinner.  Don is beginning to have a flare up of his RA and I suspect that adds to him being quiet.

We had NO phone calls all weekend. Not one.  The little red light on our phone never lit up.  Pretty strange.  Pretty lonely.

I know it is going to be a long week.  On Saturday afternoon we plan to attend a ceremony in Manchester.  My Mom has purchased a "brick" that will have my father's name in honor of his service in the Navy.  Don and me will then come home, light our dragonfly lights, and remember three years ago.

On Sunday at St. Francis, the 9am Mass will be in Mark's name.  He will have been in Heaven three years and one hour when the Mass begins.

For me, it has been eternity.