Today was the funeral for Claudine's grandmother. However, yesterday we received a phone call that made things even more stressful. Claudine's mother (Gen) called in a panic because her husband (of only 4 months) was making no sense and bumping into the walls of their house. Her first word's to Claudine were "how do you tell when someone is having a stroke?" Well, it turns out that a stroke is exactly what happened. She was in such a frenzied panic that she tried to drive him to the hospital herself, but she was having trouble getting him to go because he wasn't sure who she was. I can't imagine seeing your loved one in that condition. She called one of his best friends and that friend sent an ambulance right over and took care of everything. He is stable now but they really don't know the extent of the permanent damage. Apparently the 36 hours following the initial stroke is the most dangerous time.
So there was a simple viewing scheduled for an hour at 10 A.M. Then a service followed by a trip to the cemetery. Afterwards, Carol her daughter, planned a small get together at her mother's house. But this woman was loved by many people and the small get together kept growing - growing to a size that was almost too much for her small house. I had to get the beer and soda before the ceremony and put it on ice at the house. Well, it was kind of creepy. Don't know why. No matter how much a person can pretend that death doesn't effect them, it still was strange to walk into that house knowing that she had just died in there. I felt I was trespassing somehow.
I didn't see much of the viewing or the ceremony. I was kind of on "kid duty". Claudine was doing the family thing, comforting and being comforted by all her relatives. Jake handled things very well. At first, he was a little put off by the open casket. He hung out near the back of the room, far away from the casket. Then Claudine took both Jake and Bobby up to the casket to do a little prayer thing. Jake did very well. Then he walked up again with his grandmother. He went up three more times after that, the last one, by himself. He seemed to be reconciling the whole thing in his head - and his heart. Bobby, on the other hand, sensed that his mommy was upset. Which in turn, made him upset, even if he didn't know why. So he wanted to be attached to her the whole day. He was making a lot of noise, so once the actual service started, I grabbed him and took him to a room downstairs of the funeral parlor. It was basically a smoking lounge but it had a couple of toys in there. As I was making my escape downstairs, my sister-in-law Pam came out with her 1 1/2 year old daughter (my niece) Olivia. Although it looked like I was being the coolest guy in the world by offering to take Olivia with me so Pam could go back into the service, I actually figured that keeping Bobby occupied would be much easier if he had another kid down there to play with. And I was right. That doesn't mean I'm not the coolest guy in the world, though. After about ten minutes, Jake came downstairs. There was an Etch-a-Sketch down there so he managed. It still was a pain chasing after them. Just as the ceremony finished and everyone was leaving, Bobby let loose with a big load in his diaper. So I had to change him standing up, outside by the car. It wasn't pretty.
So we went to the cemetery. The cemetery happens to be a block and a half behind our house. Doesn't mean anything, I just thought I'd mention it. The ceremony at the grave site was very simple. Basically, the priest said a few (and I mean a very few) words and we all placed a single flower on her casket as we passed by on our way back to our cars. The flower thing was Claudine's idea. She said she saw it in a movie and liked it. If we hadn't done that, the whole thing would have been very anticlimactic. They didn't lower the coffin in the grave as I have seen in the past. I guess they did that later, after everyone had gone.
Everyone went back to the house. Aunt Carol had taken out all of Grandma's picture and left them out on the tables. It helped everyone enjoy thinking about the past instead of being sad about the future. It was a very hot day and almost everyone had brought a change of clothes. Claudine had mentioned to me before we left that I should bring a pair of shorts and a t-shirt. I thought that it was kind of a strange suggestion, but she said that everyone else was going to, so I grabbed something and threw it in the truck. I was glad I did, because standing out in the hot sun or the un-air conditioned house in a black suit was no fun. With everyone in casual clothes and drinking beer, it had turned into a kind of strange party. We knew that we were there because of a great woman's death, but - as the cliche goes - it made us all appreciate the people living around us.
