Janie, It can be done. Hang tough.

When my cousin's 6-year-old daughter died in a traffic accident, he asked me to sing a lullaby that is particular to our family. It's a version of "All The Pretty Little (or Whole Heap O' Little) Ponies". Mother, sometime transcriber/secretarial right arm to American folklorists, said she'd never run across another similar version of the several lullaby "families" she had worked with. I had made the mistake of saying, when the news about the child's death had come, "Anything I can do to help -- any way you feel I could..." Automatic response, right? That's what they asked for. The first service was at the little funeral home. I had been placed with the family, and when my cousin took my arm and placed me to sing I was 3ft. from the casket and looking straight at it. (6-yr-olds have SMALL boxes.) Not conducive, to put it mildly. I struggled thru about the first 2 lines, stopped, repositioned myself to look at some of the others in the funeral home chapel that I didn't know. I got thru without falling apart. The next morning at the church service, I lucked out. This was a German Catholic "Painted" church in the little Hill-Country town this cousin and his family lived in. These are kept up by their founders' descendants, the art work being refreshed on a regular basis. I was in the choir loft, close to the decorated arches of the ceiling. I told myself the song was just sounds in the air, and focused on the beautiful, artistic detail work around me.   Easier, smoother than the night before.

So find a way to psych yourself to get through. Nobody's gonna be able to give you a trick to make it easy. It's one of those odd, awful moments you will be able to have satisfaction in (that you participated to help the family) as life goes on. Promise.    Tw