Saying Good Bye

 The timing worked out so that the children could stay with Grandma and Grandpa while Jeremy and I continued on from their house to Ohio for my Grandma's funeral.

My Mom was already there working with her sisters on cleaning out Grandma's apartment. Our first stop was there and it was hard to see all of Grandma's things in the garage for family to take home what they wanted. For me, it was the moment of true reality that Grandma is gone.

I had two new funeral experiences. First was watching the funeral director close the casket. I never want to watch that again! It was heart wrenching. Second was that I was pall bearer. My cousin, Bea, called me on Christmas Eve. She told me that she was calling on behalf of her mom and that she had a very strange question for me. She wondered if I would consider being a pallbearer with her along with 6 of the grandsons. My mom has 7 siblings and only two families would not have a grandson at the funeral. So they asked Bea and I, as the oldest granddaughters in those families, to represent our families as pallbearers. I said yes, not because I was jumping up and down to be a pallbearers, but, because how could I say no?! 

Almost right away, I sent one of my cousins a message. "I've been named a pallbearer. I'm counting on you to cover for me so I can just pretend I'm carrying something." He said "consider it done" and I felt much better. He and I continued talking about what Grandma would think about any of her granddaughters being pallbearers. I'm sure it would be something she could not even imagine. And then he said this and it has stuck with me, "I have no problem with ladies being pallbearers but it is sad that they have to live in a world that in trying to make them more special than they feel, that is exactly what is taken away." (And maybe I will have to come back to that quote in another post because I have whole line of thought on that!)

I told my brother that night at our Christmas gathering that if he decided to go to the funeral that I would be very happy to turn the pallbearer responsibility over to him. He had already agreed to look out for Grandad while our parents were in Ohio. I was being a bit dramatic in telling him how I would not want to take over something that he should be his and he said with a perfectly straight face, "It's ok. You go be a pallbearer while I stay here and be Grandad's nurse." That struck me as being the most hilarious thing Brian could have said. Brian and I both adhere to pretty traditional gender roles and thinking of us trading places was just too funny. It happened right when my Dad was ready to pray and I could not get myself together. I must have needed a good laugh right then.

First pallbearer duty was to carry the casket from the church foyer to the hearse. It was important that Bea and I be directly across from each other. I had to trade a place to make sure that happened. We probably should have been third but we were second. It was a little tricky getting through the church doors because we had to turn to fit through while also avoiding knocking down the Christmas wreaths on the door. 

At the graveside I was in the next to last car to arrive and had to walk the length of the cemetery. Everyone was waiting. 🙈 We managed to end up on the opposite side of the casket than we were in the church. It was a farther walk on grass and I was just watching the shoes in front of me hoping not to trip myself or the guy in front of me. That time my cousin was on his left side (he would have preferred the right) and he was feeling it. I assured him if he was sore the next day it was my fault. I'm sure he was carrying my weight! We all survived and there was no mishap.

I knew that Aliza and Anna wanted to watch the service. They did watch and my heart melted when Karen sent me the above picture. They were watching with their arms around each other. The service ended with a recording of my Grandpa singing The Lord's Prayer. Aliza said it was good she didn't know it was Grandpa Kenny singing or she would have cried. 

I came home utterly exhausted. I felt all the extremes of emotion. I was very sad to say good bye to Grandma. I was very sad for my Mom losing her Mom. It was so so good to spend time alone with Jeremy. I loved talking to aunts and cousins that I haven't seen in a long time. I cried hard and I laughed hard. It took a couple days of normal sleeping patterns to feel like myself again. 😀