Chapter 7 - Lily’s Funeral
Adrian wanted a private funeral at the Blackwell family chapel.
Twenty guests.
Family only.
No hospital staff.
No press.
No foundation donors.
I heard control immediately.
Then stopped myself.
“What do you need from that?”
He looked surprised.
“Privacy.”
Not:
Image.
Privacy.
“What else?”
“I don’t want strangers looking at her like a Blackwell tragedy.”
That I understood.
I wanted Lily’s nurses there.
Her cardiologist.
The child-life specialist who painted her fingernails badly.
My sister.
Raymond.
People who had actually inhabited Lily’s world.
We compromised.
Thirty-seven people.
No media.
No announcement until afterward.
Adrian’s family chapel.
Lily’s hospital music therapist played the song Lily liked.
Celeste wanted white roses.
I said Lily hated roses.
She liked sunflowers.
Celeste almost argued.
Then stopped.
Sunflowers filled the chapel.
Small decisions.
That was where we began learning.
Adrian did not give the eulogy.
He said he could not.
I did.
Not about courage.
Not about fighting.
Lily hated medicine.
Loved blueberries.
Called helicopters “sky trucks.”
Refused to sleep unless one sock was missing.
I wanted her remembered as a child rather than a medical event.
Afterward, Adrian asked whether he could hold the urn.
I almost said no.
Then I asked myself why.
Because I distrusted him?
Some.
Because I wanted one thing he could not manage?
More.
I handed it to him.
He held it for maybe thirty seconds.
Then returned it.
No struggle.
May you like
That tiny exchange did more for me than any clause.
Because possession ended when asked.
