Beautiful day today, just like the last few days here. Promises to be a bit cooler. We took a walk in the morning and then gathered for the burial at 10am. We gathered around the burial site and the grandsons carried the casket to the location beside my dad’s grave. It has been nearly 10 years since Dad passed away.
Cousin Calvin did a great job with a eulogy and then we were all given the opportunity to lay a flower on the casket. The result was more beautiful than an arranged spray. Lots and lots of pink and white peonies from cousin Nick’s farm.
Then it was on to the church where the memorial service was held. In spite of a few technical difficulties (the words to the songs we were supposed to sing remained stubbornly off the screen until the last song), this was a beautiful service and testified to God’s faithfulness in Mom’s life. Calvin gave a message from Psalm 27, Mom’s favorite Psalm and I read a few of her underlined verses from her Bible. Just a few. If I would have read all the underlined passages, we would have been there a very long time. Mom’s Bible was precious to her and it was well used and well loved.
The ladies of the church put on a luncheon after the funeral in the lobby of the church. We packed the place--this was a well-attended funeral. Instead of the usual CRC luncheon of ham buns and green jello with pears, we had ham buns and red jello with marshmallows, quite a daring deviation from the formula. We had Mom’s recipe of Texas sheet cake for dessert.
Here at last we had a chance to enter into some conversations with some of the cousins and aunties and uncles. Several relatives I have not seen in decades were present, several coming from Lynden, some from Colorado, Montana, California, and others from Michigan, among other places. There was some conversation yesterday at the visitation, but the arrangement of the room--all full of pews and narrow aisles--forced everyone to face forward or crowd the aisles, and this coming together had a far different feel than today. If I were to come in as an outsider and hazard a guess as to what was going on , I would probably say that the visitation is a coming together to acknowledge the death, and the funeral service is a coming together to celebrate the life.
We took a picture of all the cousins on Mom's side present at the funeral. It took a bit to get everyone together because everyone was involved in conversations, but we finally did it.
Once the church was cleaned up and put back in order, we all headed back to Cheryl’s house to hang out for the afternoon. A dinner was provided by the Friend cousins, so we were well taken care of. We are grateful to the extended family for providing meals for yesterday and today, and to the church for the luncheon.
Part of the afternoon was spent going through the stuff left over from Mom’s room. The siblings picked out what we wanted, then the grandchildren looked it all over and put their names on what they wanted. The stuff was arranged on folding tables in the garage, so it appeared exactly like a garage sale. Ever the cut-up, David put his little sticky notes on the pen that everyone was using to write their names on the sticky notes, and on Cheryl’s van sitting just outside the garage.
The last two days, especially yesterday, have been very emotionally draining, even for a rather unemotional person like me. In that sense, it was good to have the visitation and funeral behind us, and to be able to just visit for a while. The kids have been connecting well, playing games and sitting around talking to each other. That’s been great to see: cousins who haven’t seen each other in a long time coming together and having a good time. I suppose for them, it’s a little more removed. For them it’s a grandma that passed away, a grandma that lived far away. For me, it’s Mom. The distance doesn't matter.
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