Family

# Chapter 47

Funerals. In one way the saddest emotional event that ever happens in life, and in other ways the most social event that ever happens in life. We buried my uncle John yesterday. I fought like crazy to get there and arrived from California in MooCow Georgia just in the nick of time. I was the last person to arrive. But Aunt Edith and my cousins are special people, and I made a special effort to get there.

I knew some of the people there really really well, and others barely at all. I saw school mates from high school that I hadn’t seen in 40 years. Saw most of my aunts and uncles on that side of the family (my mom had 12 brothers and sisters!) and many of my cousins. The church was packed out and full. And the procession to the cemetery on the other side of town stopped traffic for almost a full mile. And after the graveside, people stood around and were social with people they hadn’t seen in ages.

But emotionally, this stirred up strange and uncomfortable things inside of me. John and Edith and my parents all purchased plots in the same row near each other in the cemetery. So the graveside service happened right next to my mom’s grave at the Memorial Gardens.

I would not classify funerals as a distraction even though it was in fact pretty distracting for the whole day. But what I have been calling distractions for the last 45 days are things I can control to a point or affect or mitigate. A family funeral is a normal life event that I don’t think you can do anything about but just go through it.