My Goodbye

The morning of Rory’s service I kept getting this feeling, “You need to say something.”

I kept trying to push it aside. I’ll never be able to keep it together. How am I supposed to speak?

I pulled out a notebook and just wrote. It wasn’t much, but it’s what I needed to say.

My dad was the last speaker from our family, so I asked him to look down at me. If I give you the go ahead announce that I’m going to speak.

At the end, I nodded my head and walked to the stand.

This is what I said:

I want to thank everyone for their love and support. We feel like we’re drowning right now. 10 feet under. But as I look up I see hundreds of life preservers there waiting for us to grasp. Each one of them is thrown by one of you. We might be down here for a while. A long while. But we know and we feel each of your support.

We’ve had wonderful memories shared by my parents and Xander. I would like to share a few of my own.

Rory has always been my sweet baby girl. That’s what I call her. As she grew up I told her, so that there wouldn’t be any confusion, she would always be my sweet baby girl.

Rory asked me frequently when she could start wearing make up. I thought it was so funny because 5 out of 7 days I don’t wear any make up myself. But she’d look through my meager amount of make up and put a little on. I was always so jealous of her eye lashes. They’re so long and perfectly curled. Sometimes I would allow her to put mascara on just to see those beauties more closely.

Rory was silly and funny. The last few years she invented a fake laugh. She couldn’t just laugh with her mouth. She’d fall back and pound the couch and let out the fakest laugh there is. It was so fake.

Rory’s imagination never ceased to amaze me. Last week she carried around a fondant cutter and imagined it to be a million different things. At night she would sit up and read her books and play with her toys. When she’d sit next to me as church she was always moving her arms, imagining she was doing something. Well, when she was leading the music from our row.

I’m going to miss her running into my arms after school. Her kisses on my lips. Because she always wanted them in the lips. Her sweet smile. Her spunky attitude. Man, she got away with everything. Her kind spirit. Her everything.