Funny story. I actually forgot about needing to get a headstone for Eric for a really long time…we’re talking easily over six months. In my defense, I am not a cemetery visitor. As I’ve said before, I went once shortly after the funeral, had a panic attack and didn’t go back. Then one day I was listening to the radio and an ad for pet monuments came on. My first thought was probably something like ‘am I the type of person who would buy a headstone for my dog?’ – followed quickly (I’m sure) by the recollection that my husband still needed one.

I wish I could say things progressed quickly from there, but they didn’t. I put it on the back-burner – along with things like wiping down the baseboards of the house, or organizing the storage room. All things that should be done, but nothing that sounded enjoyable. I knew it was going to be an emotional and stressful undertaking (there’s a joke in there somewhere…undertaker…you get it…), so I was definitely putting it off…but at least at this point I consistently remembered it needed to happen. Progress.

Once I decided on a company, I had to decide what to put on it. That’s a lot of pressure! You know the saying ‘nothing is written in stone’? Well there are some notable exceptions to that rule. I knew I wanted it to be personal and unique, but also respectful and God-fearing. We’d told Eric’s whole story in our own words and in our own way, and I wanted that to transfer over to the headstone. So I did what any normal person would do…I googled it. Unfortunately nothing came up.

I honestly don’t remember where my idea for the bottle opener came from…I would say divine inspiration, but that seems unlikely given the subject matter. Maybe it was Eric. I knew some of the guys would go over and occasionally have a beer in the cemetery, so it probably stemmed from that. The credit for the lion head portion of the bottle opener goes to Nate. I don’t recall the order of events, but I know I texted him asking if he would find a few options for me. The lion head was the final choice he sent over, and I instantly knew that was the one. Why, you might ask? Well I’ll tell you! After Eric’s terminal diagnosis came back he went through a phase of wanting to do a lot of outrageous stuff. Examples include things like wanting to sell his car and buy a brand new truck – telling me I could return it in a few months and get almost all the money back. He wanted to buy a Mac desktop, even though we barely used our laptop – but he thought it would be a nice big screen for clinical trial research. (He actually almost convinced me on that one) And he wanted to get a bunch of tattoos – specifically arm sleeves, and a lion head on his thigh. Why in the world a lion? ‘Oh, no reason, I just think it would look cool.’ [Insert eye-roll].

The text was tricky. I’m a bit wordy, so I was glad I had two sides of the stone to work with. The idea for the words above and below his date dash came from our Bible study. We did a session called “Live the Dash” and it talked about the dates on your headstone, and how it’s the dash between those dates that really matters. And an idea was born. I debated about the word choice for a while because I feared it sounded too close to the “Live Laugh Love” that is always showing up in household decor, but ultimately I thought it was an accurate representation of his dash. He lived fully, and he loved deeply.

“I am not my own, but belong, body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ” This is the answer to question 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism, and it’s the only scripture related text that I remember being particularly meaningful to Eric. He did a Bible study on it with his men’s group, and it was the inspiration for his tattoo that said ‘divine providence’ in Hebrew. Thankfully, Bryan, our old pastor and great friend, remembered this, so he gets the credit for this one.

The back of the stone seemed a little less formal. I had trouble deciding if I wanted to include the list of descriptors… father, husband, son, etc…and then how many levels? Do I include nephew? Uncle? Coworker!? I believe I was leaning towards leaving them all off until I had a conversation with our friend (and Arie’s fruncle) Nate. He said that on his brothers headstone it listed son and brother, and it helped him feel like he was there with him. I loved that sentiment, so back on the stone they went. I kept the big four, husband, brother, son, father, and then added ‘friend to all’ to cover all the rest. I was really tempted to put ‘friend to most’ because I thought it would be funny…

I went back and forth on that stupid picture longer than any other decision. Do I include one at all? If so, who should be in it? Can I use his LinkedIn picture and call it a day? After much debate, that I will spare you from reading, I finally decided that I did want his picture included. If people walked past, I wanted them to see that this stone was for a man far too young, and I wanted them to be sad and say, ‘what a tragedy’. From there I decided that I wanted the cemetery world to forever know that he was a dad, so Arie got added to the picture. And finally, I hated the thought of leaving my little family alone in the picture without me, so I included myself. (Yes, having your picture on a headstone while you’re still alive is a little weird.) I actually don’t like the picture I put on there. Eric’s not wearing his glasses, my hair looks weird, and Arie doesn’t look like himself. But it’s the latest high-resolution picture I have of the three of us and I was so tired of making decisions, so I finally said screw it, and sent it over to stone makers.

Last but not least, the final text reads ‘We grieve, but not without hope, for in Christ alone our hope is found, and so it is well with our soul’. This is a combination of three texts I liked. The first portion – ‘we grieve, but not without hope’ – comes from Eric’s funeral service. Our pastor, Dirk, prepared a beautiful service based on this Bible verse, and the hope we can cling to in our grief. The second part -‘in Christ alone our hope is found’ – comes from a song that we sang at our wedding, and at the funeral. It’s one of my favorites. And the last part -‘it is well with our soul’ – comes from a song about grief and acceptance, that Eric loved. Given that I couldn’t include the full text of each of these, I combined them into my own sentence. Also, in case any of you are dumb enough to attempt to correct the grammar on the headstone of my husband, Bryan helped me confirm that although the plural was used throughout the sentence, the singular “soul” at the end is appropriate.

So there you have it – the rationale behind my choices. I’ll be honest, I’m most proud of the stroke of genius that was the bottle opener…verbal copyright!