April 10, 2021 was a beautiful day in Pittsburgh with temperatures in the 70s, blue sky & sunshine and all the flowering trees and shrubs in full bloom…just the way Liz would have liked it.
She was laid to rest surrounded by friends & family on the sunny slope of a new section of a small cemetery which is right in our neighborhood, The Heights of North Park. A funeral service followed at our church, New Community Church, which is nearby.
Pastor Mark Bolton presided over the burial and welcomed everyone to the Memorial Service. He and I read bible passages I selected from bookmarks I had made over the years that seemed appropriate to the circumstances of February 9-14 when I lost my best friend.
Bryon Maxwell from Phoenix, AZ, a long-time friend of Liz’s older son Zac who considered Liz his second mom.
Christy Karmanos from Pittsburgh, Liz’s fitness instructor and confidant.
Lisa Siranovich from Pittsburgh, a long-time friend, customer and confidant.
When they had finished, there was not a dry eye in the building.
At the beginning of the Memorial Service, we played a video slide presentation of Liz to the Bruno Mars song Just the Way You Are.
This was the ringtone on Liz’s phone when I called her and perfectly summed-up the way I felt about her.
She would always wait for a few rings to listen to the song and then answer, “I’m so amazing”.
Our Worship Pastor, Matt Mason, is an incredibly talented musician and sang I Can Only Imagine at the end of the service, providing a positive message for the end of a life well-lived.
We ended the Memorial Service with a little video of Liz feeding the cats which captured her loving tenderness and signature giggle and laugh.
Liz’s final resting place is in the Salem Heights Cemetery right in our neighborhood, The Heights of North Park.
It is a small cemetery on a mound encircled with trees and is a very serene and peaceful place. The flowers from the Memorial Service covered her grave. She was laid to rest in a McKenzie-Childs urn in The Heights of North Park…. two of her favorites.
The headstone marking her grave will be in place late summer/early fall 2021. It is a large black monument in the middle of the new lower section right along the road through the cemetery. If you are in the area, stop by and say hello to her. The monument has a nice flower urn…she could never have enough flowers!