If you have never had to plan a funeral for someone you love with all your heart, you are very lucky. I had to do that twice, and neither time was easy. Even knowing that both men were in Heaven did not make it easier, because I missed both like crazy. One was my brother, and the other was my father. I helped my mom plan both funerals because it was too much for her to do on her own. The one part that brought me peace was looking at different monuments in Newark NJ a few weeks after we had their funerals.
Because it had this effect on my heart, my mom asked me if I could do both of them. It was just too much for her to bear. Since I knew both of them as well as I did, it was actually easy for me to pick out the headstones we ended up using for both of their gravesides. The one for my dad was super easy to pick out. His main passion in life was fishing. He would fish anytime of the year, even if it meant ice fishing in the middle of winter. For his tombstone, there is a fishing pole, a few fish, and a tackle box engraved on it.
As soon as my mom saw it, she knew it was the perfect one for my dad’s grave. As for my brother, he was a bit harder because he had so many different interests. I was not sure which one to put on his tombstone, so I went through some pictures, knowing it would hit me as soon as I saw what it should be. His tombstone has a cross on it, with a few scriptures too. The reason I chose this was because no matter what he enjoyed, he loved witnessing to others more than anything. I figured what better way to honor his life than to have him witness to others right on his tombstone. My mom agreed!