The funeral

Trying to say Good Bye 

Today we laid to rest the physical shell of my beautiful boy. I felt an enormous amount of support and love from our family and friends. The music lifted our hearts as we sang "A child's Prayer", "Lead Kindly Light", "I stand all Amazed", "Sunshine in my Soul today", and "Christ's light". Terik Loved music and I believe he cried and smiled down from Heaven as he heard the beauty and love of so many of his friends and family members singing songs of Love in remembrance of him. I know he was there as Troy and I spoke. We felt like we needed to stand and pay tribute to Terik, no matter how hard it was, for the remarkable young man he was and the amazing life he lived for the 17 1/2 years we were all blessed to have with him. I know as we said our final goodbyes and told all those within the sound of our voice, about our admiration and love for him, that he was close by listening with awe as he finally saw what all of us could see all along. He was (and still is) AMAZING!!! We wanted everyone to leave his funeral remembering the life he lived. We didn't want anyone to define him by the last few minutes of his life or the way he ended it. We released over a hundred balloons into the cold blue skies, which only minutes before had been pouring down a blizzard of snow.

A Rainbow of Balloons

Terik Loved the snow. One of his favorite things was to watch a fresh fallen snow from the window, sitting by the fire wrapped up in a warm blanket, and sipping a cup of hot cocoa. He had prayed for Snow this last Christmas. We had not had any good snow storms so far in the year and no snow on the ground. Snow was not forecasted for the week of Christmas. But Christmas Eve night it snowed all evening and we woke up to a beautiful blanket of snow. He knew that God had heard his prayer.


When it was snowing a strong blizzard outside the morning of his funeral I had no doubt that it was Terik's way of saying, "I'm here and I wanted you to know it! I love you Mom, Dad, Family, and all my friends". Everyone who really knew him knew that this would have been the perfect day for his funeral. A blanket of snow covering the ground, then beautiful sunshiny skies to follow. The only thing even more perfect would have been a double rainbow. But we will count our balloons as that double rainbow. We love you Terik and we are so grateful we got to remember you with honor  today and thank you for the life you led and the Joy we received by knowing you.

Christmas Day 2014 "Fresh Fallen Snow"