401.

This is my 401st post.

Okay, I have to be brief because the battery is waning on my handy laptop, but I've been sitting on a bunch of notes for a few days, and I need to write something to get it out of my head.....

It is amazing to me how long three days can last. I swear a week passed in the two days following our arrival here in the Mitten. It was a surreal experience, to which I'm sure some of you can attest.

Images:

The funeral director was very nice; he is actually a family friend, but even so, he seemed a bit too friendly. I believe his personal feelings for my Mother and my Father were causing him to overcompensate, but I have to tell you, he did it up right. The whole nine yards were quite beautiful.

My Mother looked lovely. My Mother always looked lovely (Mothers always do) but given the fact that her descent was so consuming, they did a wonderful job of it; and I'm saying that in the full knowledge that I hate viewings. I find them barbaric and absurd, and in this case a little frightening. I became a small boy again, unable to grasp the idea....I stayed in the back of the room for most of the evening, and I couldn't....look...very much at all.

Flowers from all over.

I was sitting in the back, talking to my Niece and my Nephew, when in walked a face I haven't seen in 25 years; an old friend that spent a couple of weeks with the family over the course of our dating life, and still well remembered by all the members of the family. Vicki came to pay her respects, and we spent some time together regaling my wife with the tales of a young man's derring-do. We left out the really personal parts. I don't need to say because.....

Did the Eulogy on Tuesday morning. I read a version of post 400. Cracked like a walnut. Got through it, got some subtle laughs, and the reviews were positive. I don't wish to repeat the program, however. Good music, and excellent Priest (Mother was Roman Catholic) and then it was time to go to the cemetery.

Pallbearing sucks.

They will be together, when the time comes, in a quiet spot near the north fence of the old cemetery, just under an old pine tree, in a quiet neighborhood just three blocks north of Main street. It snowed, and the wind was cold, and I left a flower before I returned to town for the wake.

I thanked her for shaping me into what I am.
The love was unspoken.
But I'll fight any man that disputes it.

The restaurant for the wake; open bar. Good food. Old stories, like a comfortable pair of shoes. The time for grief is passed (but unpassing, alas) and the time to celebrate this tiny woman with the enormous heart had come.

And the day went on forever.

My Mother was a petite woman; 4'11" and ninety pounds. She and Father had come up to the Northern University to see their son perform his last pieces before graduation; his final jury selections, and goodbye to that painful crap. I was standing with four of my taller friends in the lobby when they walked in. I introduced my Father, and we all shook hands, and then I went down on my knees to introduce my Mother, and all my friends followed suit.

I got that whooping laugh of hers.
The greatest reward. It was the surest sound; if you got that laugh, there was nobody that could say you weren't funny.

Flying out tomorrow.

See ya.