Grandpa Shoaf's Funeral

Grandpa died last week. The news was a bit of a shock for me because we had only heard about cancer at the end of December and realized that it was serious at the end of January. I assumed that I would be able to say goodbye and see him when I went home in April for Sarah's mission homecoming. That didn't happen liked I planned and part of my heart broke. Why are goodbye's so important?

I wasn't going to be able to fly home for the funeral and viewing until my sister Lachelle decided that she would be able to drive out to Indiana. I picked up two of our cousins from BYU and met Lachelle and her husband Ben in Ogden to start the drive to Indiana. I was gone Thursday morning until Monday night. I like I spent about 56 hours in the car and just a little more than that actually in Indiana :)

I'm so grateful that I could go. It was the goodbye that I needed and funerals always end up being family reunions; this one was no exception. We have a gigantic family and only 5 cousins didn't make it, which is pretty amazing.

We are so large in fact that the funeral and viewing were held at my old high school gym.

Here is Grandma with all of her children, lined up by age, for the viewing.

Courtney is one of the cousins we drove out with (with her niece).

Here are all 13 of the kids that Grandma and Grandpa raised... my good lookin' dad is on the front row with a red tie. All their names start with "J" too. Isn't that fun?

Even though we are a big family I would still say were are pretty close. These are the cousin's of mine that were all born in 1985. What a good looking year it was!

Brother Tyler and his cute family.

Cute Mom and Dad!

My family minus Sarah who is on a mission in Argentina.

BFF cousins (Thomas is coming out to BYU to play football in the fall- woot woot)

Dad and Hudson.

Aunt RaNae and her grand kids.

More cousins...

It was such a great whirl-wind trip. The thoughts and stories expressed in the funeral were some I had never heard before and I just loved hearing all the details of my dad and his family's lives.

I was a lot more sentimental on the other blog when I shared a letter I wrote to Grandpa and Grandma's raspberry cobbler recipe. Feel free to read those thoughts here. Plus there are some really great pictures of Grandpa in his younger years.