funeral
August 07, 2014

It was a lovely funeral; so many people sent beautiful plants and flowers, the same pastor who did my little brother's service did this one and even though I do not have much to do with organized religion, she is a lovely, kind, sweet person, and a tremendous comfort when you are hurting. She is also a brilliant, classically trained operatic soprano, so she sang "Amazing Grace" and made everyone's jaws drop.

The funeral home handled everything very well. Mom's personal hairdresser came and did her hair, as well as overseeing the make-up to make sure the funeral home staff got it right.

She looked fantastic. Almost too good--I was kind of hoping she wouldn't look so much like herself. It made it awfully hard to say goodbye.

It was a far larger gathering than my dad had expected; lots of family, but lots of friends as well. Friends of hers, friends of my little brother, friend's and co-workers of my older brothers and myself--P&E sent flowers, AND came down from Milwaukee, my retired boss and her husband came out from the Chicago suburbs, my middle brother's boss came--all of those were at least a three hour drive, but they took the trouble, and we greatly appreciated it.

My parents didn't have a luncheon when my little brother died, and they always regretted it. Mom definitely wanted one for her funeral. We tried to get the Moose Lodge for it, because the WOTM chapter does it all and only charges $125.00 for the whole thing. But since we had the funeral on Saturday, they were booked up. So we had it at a local Italian restaurant, and everyone who came really seemed to enjoy it.

My dad was a little stunned by the outpouring of memorial donations--it looks like we are going to top a thousand, to be divided between the hospice and the cemetery maintenance fund. My company donated $50 to the hospice, and my co-workers donated $100 to the cemetery, which kind of stunned me, to be honest.

We still have the internment of the cremains coming up in a couple of weeks, but it isn't as big and formal as the actual funeral, so I guess I can make it through.

I am going back down to Dad's on Saturday, to keep him company and help him get some stuff done. I am happy to do it, but not thrilled at the prospect of five consecutive weekends out of town (hospice, funeral, help Dad, next week I have a concert in Madison, then the Internment after that). I absolutely refuse to budge an inch, come Labor Day Weekend.