Together forever: Mother and daughter who died in crash buried in same casket
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – In a single casket, mother and daughter will always be together.
"We know that Carrie and Kacey were attached at the hip," the Rev. Shayne Duvall said during their funeral Mass on Thursday.
"How beautiful it is that they lay side by side, now and until eternity."
Crowds circled the side streets off Bardstown Road looking for parking on a frigid morning. They hiked blocks to St. Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church to mourn the loss of two of the four Louisville residents killed in a car crash outside St. Louis on Valentine's Day.
Carrie McCaw, 44, and her 12-year-old daughter, Kacey, were on their way to a KIVA volleyball tournament in Kansas City, Missouri, when a pickup truck hit their minivan head-on.
Community morns: Louisville's volleyball community gutted by tragic crash in St. Louis
Also killed in the minivan were Louisville firefighter Lesley Prather, 40, and her 12-year-old daughter, Rhyan. They will be laid to rest Friday after an 11 a.m. service at Southeast Christian Church.
The pickup driver who hit their vehicle survived. A criminal investigation is underway.
Carrie and Kacey McCaw were "kind and active, sincere and beautiful," Duvall said to a packed parish. "They were passionate and funny, full of life and energy and excitement."
They were, he added, "women of great faith." And now, they'll never be apart.
Cracked voices swelled during the opening hymn: Here I am Lord … Is it I Lord? … I have heard You calling in the night … I will go Lord … If You lead me … I will hold Your people in my heart.
A woman wearing baby blue scrubs, another in a volleyball sweatshirt with slacks and heels, and a sniffling Boy Scout were elbow to elbow among the crowd.
Rachel Krebs, Carrie's cousin, said it was "truly phenomenal" that so many people were touched by Carrie's life.
"Carrie would have never believed that there'd be this many people who'd come out and support her and her family to show their love and appreciation," she said.
Father Duvall, standing over the single casket draped in cloth, delivered a homily that left people both laughing and crying.
Between the volleyball jokes – that heaven was a place with "no illegal touches," "no back-row attacks" and "thanks be to God, no one is yelling at the officials" – Duvall encouraged the crowd to turn to faith in their time of grief.
"It’s going to take a lot of time to heal and to have our questions answered," he said. "We cannot and should not get over this tragedy too quickly. We have to heal. We have to cry. We have to laugh. We have to share. We have to live our lives to the fullest, because that is exactly what Carrie and Kacey would want us to do."
At the closing of the Mass, the mourners' voices rose again: And He will raise you up on eagle's wings. Bear you on the breath of dawn. Make you to shine like the sun. And hold you in the palm of His Hand.
Follow Sarah Ladd on Twitter at @ladd_sarah.