![]() ![]() Over the following months, Gabriella mostly forgot about the funeral, and when she did think about it, she assumed someone else had won the car. They left after the service was over to give Sweeney’s family and friends space to say their goodbyes. To Gabriella’s surprise, there was no raffle that day. Each of them signed the guest book and sat through the service, which lasted about an hour. Upon pulling into the packed parking lot, the group contemplated leaving, worried about disrupting the service.īut they gutted it out, parking in the back. They showed up a little late because her sister, uncomfortable navigating highways, had driven slowly. So Gabriella rallied her two sisters, one of her sister’s boyfriends and a cousin to drive to Oklahoma City on July 22, 2022, the day of Sweeney’s funeral. “Gabbie was limping it to work and back,” he added. By the time the SUV got to Gabriella, it had “well over 160,000 miles,” her father, Rodney, said. She had just gotten her learner’s permit and, although it hadn’t been decided, she’d assumed that she would inherit the 2007 Ford Edge originally owned by her grandparents that was then passed down to two of her older sisters when they started driving. ![]() Sweeney wanted her final act to represent another part of her personality – her generosity.Ī high-schooler she had never met, 15-year-old Gabriella Bonham, saw a TV news story about Sweeney’s last wish as her own future car was on its last legs. It was her playfulness, creativity and sense of humor made manifest into an ambassador that represented her as she cruised the roads of Oklahoma while singing the likes of Carole King and James Taylor. ![]() The car, which Sweeney had bought new seven years earlier, was more than a vehicle that got her from point A to point B, her niece, Suzanne Singleterry, told the Washington Post. But before she did, she told her relatives that she wanted them to raffle off her VW Bug to anyone who signed the guest book at her funeral. As she lay in an open casket last year, dozens of strangers packed Resthaven Funeral Home in Oklahoma City, hoping to benefit from her final wish: to raffle off her most prized possession in the world.Īfter a brief illness, Sweeney had died “suddenly and unexpectedly” on July 7, 2022, at the age of 68. Most of the people at Diane Sweeney’s funeral had never met her. ![]()
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