It was a touching moment on Oprah as two young girls remembered their mother. "She was just my mom to me. To everyone else she was a freak," said Renee Williams' eldest daughter.
Renee weighed 900 pounds and she risked everything to become the world's largest woman ever to undergo gastric bypass surgery. But just two weeks after the operation, she died of a massive heart attack at the age of 29.
Renee's weight kept her trapped in the bed of her home in Austin, Texas for three years. "It's hard to look at this room as a family room because sometimes I look at it as my coffin," the beloved mom said in a home video seen on Winfrey's show.
The casket she was ultimately buried in was oversized, measuring 48" wide, compared to a normal casket which is only 24". The casket was custom-made. Its handles were reinforced with steel. According to one of the funeral home employees, the casket with Renee inside weighed a total of approximately 1,200 lbs.
The casket was covered with red roses, Renee's favorite flower. Her daughters arrived to the funeral wearing red, their mom's favorite color.
The pallbearers moved the coffin inch-by-inch. Instead of a hearse, a cargo van, with an extra axel was used to transport Renee to the cemetery. A chain was used to lift the casket and lower it into the double-wide plot.
Renee was buried with her teddy bear and her glasses. The ceremony was a special farewell for the woman who wanted nothing more than to see her beautiful daughters grow up.