When my mother unexpectedly passed away at 62, my dad decided to make arrangements with Henderson -Van Atta- Stickle, and I am so very glad he did. The pairing of professionalism with fellowship, empathy with comedy, thoroughness with flexibility, timeliness with patience, servitude with autonomy, and more, was the ideal balance for my family’s breaking heart. Kate, in particular, is the God send we worked with and who I am describing. She’s incredibly good at her job, helping dissipate the heaviness in the air. I admit I can be an anxiety-ridden control freak in regular life, but especially for my own mother’s wake, so I came with lots of questions, requests, edits, and more edits. Kate never made me feel anything but supported and accommodated. We had a beautiful service/celebration with many creative, unique ideas put into play. It was perfect. When you’re in the early days of loss, it’s a fragile state to be dealing with logistics/customer service, so the fact that I can say planning my Mom’s funeral was somehow a pleasant experience is huge. Thank you, Kate, truly.