We went up to Aunt Sherry's funeral on Wednesday.  I picked up Teina on the way and we met with Les and Brenda at the church.  It was real nice to see Sherry and Elmer's kids...its been many years since I've seen some of them.  They were really sweet though and remembered all of our names. We were the only one's there from Mum's side of the family...well I guess they are all gone now except for Janeen. She is living alone in St. George now that Marcell has passed away.  We walked by her casket and was kind of shocked when we saw her.  You wouldn't have even know that was her...This is how I remember Sherry...

 

It was sure a nice funeral. They had a bunch of the grand kids tell some memories of her, then Lee talked. He told a lot about their life growing up in Panacka (Nevada) and what a fun mom she was.  They had seven kids...6 boys and their last one was a girl.  So she had to be a pretty tough mom!  He talked about how she would  just get right down and play with the boys...wrestling and playing ball and all the things boys like to do.  I thought that was pretty sweet that that's what they remembered and loved about their mom.

 Then they had a musical number.."I know that my Redeemer lives" that was really something special.Then her home teacher and bishop talked.  Probably one of the sweetest funerals I've been to.

 

Sunday when we were at the cemetery, Curtis called Candice and told her his dad was dying.  He had been in the hospital for a little while with other problems, then had developed an infection in his bones.  They were going to try to treat it with super antibiotics, but when they looked at his spine, could see that the infection had spread and damaged a big part of his spine. I guess at this point, they decided to let him go.

We took Candice right up to the University hospital so she could be with Curtis.  Candice called  the next morning saying he had passed away.

 She said Curtis's mom was just planning the funeral arrangements and needed a piano player.  I told Candice I was happy to do it.  She said they had a guy that was going to sing for it and would need an accompanist.  I thought, well sure I can do that. 
This guy called me the next day and said he was going to sing "I walked today where Jesus walked"  Oh boy, one of my most favorite songs....to sing...to play, not so much.  Us girls had sung it several times and always had Ludene Knowles play for us.  I actually remember thinking as she played that that was a hard piece...lots of runs that have to go pretty fast or the song will be painfully slow.  We had the sheet music at home too, and I could muddle through it slowly.  So I thought, OK, if I have  a few days, I can probably get it.  He brought the music over the next day when I was gone and left it in the front door  As soon as I looked at it, I broke out in a full on panic attack complete with tears...  It was written in a lower key...four sharps.  Oh dear.  I don't do sharps good.  So I sat down to the piano and tried to play it.  It took me about 15 minutes just to figure out what the notes were ,with lots of double sharps and real low notes.  (continue crying)  So then I thought, OK, I will copy the music, then write in all the notes.  So I did, then sat down to play it again.  Oh dear, I still couldn't play it.  My fingers just won't do it!  (more crying...I so did not want to let them down)  About this time, Kelley and KC came home.  KC came in and saw me sitting there  with big red eyes.  He's like "whats going on?"  I told him what I had been doing.  He said "well play it for me and I'll tell you what I think."  So I tried to muddle through it. When I finished I could tell by his face that he was thinking real hard about the right words to say. He said  "You have a few more day's to practice...you can get it!"  I had one more melt down at that point.  Then KC said  "wow this is really stressing you out..You don't even know this guy and would have to practice nonstop for the next two days to get this down..., you should see if he will sing something easier"  Genius! 

So I called the guy ( his name was Shane and he didn't actually know Curtis's dad either...it was his brother-in-laws cousin? but he was super nice)  and told him about the trouble I was having.  He said he had been worried about it too when he saw the four sharps.  He was really cool about it though...he was just like..."well I'll just sing something else...this shouldn't be a stressful thing...no worries"  Curtis's mom had asked for "Oh My Father" in the first place so he said he would sing that.  So he came over the next afternoon and we practiced together. He really had an amazing voice!  Even though I just played out of the hymn book, it sounded really beautiful.
Kelley and I went  to the viewing early enough so we could meet Curtis's mom, then I went in to play prelude music.  Kelley sat with Candice while they waited for the funeral to start.
The funeral was real nice.  They had a cousin and their Stake president talk.  Shane sang beautifully, You could have heard a pin drop in there....he has one of those kind of voices. Then the Bishop gave a really nice talk (mostly to Curtis's  mom, Curtis and his sister)  that I wish I could have written the words down to...very sweet and comforting.

Curtis's dad on his mission to Scotland