Wednesday

I slept like a rock Tuesday night. Woke up at 7:30, and got the munchkin ready, and drove her to preschool at 9. My Dad, brothers, and the rest of the group had a meeting at 9am at the church. They met with Pastor Cecil Todd, who came in the restaurant all the time, and knew Mom pretty well. That made me feel good that some one that knew her was going to be doing the services. I was unable to attend the church meeting, but heard it went really well. The sanctuary holds 400, and we felt that would be plenty.

At noon, I pick up my daughter and take both girls over to my mother-in-laws. My beautiful bride and I head to MG, where Mom and Dad grew up, for a 2pm meeting with the Funeral home. Ben, the funeral director, walks us through everything. My oldest brother has his laptop out with a list of questions that he had been thinking about. There were 8 of us all together, quite an intimidating group, I don't think Ben was ready for that. We answered some questions about Mom for the Obituary. Pat and Jeannie told us (on the side) some things that we would and wouldn't need, and that was greatly appreciated. Dad was having a hard time with all of this, but especially when we had to choose a casket. He had to step outside. I went with him, and we stood out behind the funeral home. Next to us was the church that I used to go to Boy Scouts. Across the street was the little building I had my first job. Dad started talking about he and Mom walking home for lunch everyday, and he even went so far as to describe what Mom was wearing on a typical day. It's kind of strange growing up in the same small town my parents did.

Dad had settled down a bit, and we headed back inside. The group had narrowed it down to 3 choices, and just showed them to Dad. He pointed to one immediately, and that was done. We handed over the clothes we wanted Mom to wear, her make-up, and her jewelery. Mom and Dad had gone shopping the week earlier for something nice for her to wear to Richard's funeral, and that is the outfit Dad thought would be best for her. We picked out a nice guest book, and the design for the memorial program, and that very hard part was done.

Next, we met with the caretaker of the cemetery to pick out a plot for Mom. This was a very hard step for me. Something about Dad standing on the spot where he too would be buried someday, was just really difficult for me to handle. There was a couple of plots very close to my Mom's parents, but that section only allowed for "flat" head stones. Stones that are flush with the ground. Mom really hated that. So we found a couple in the next section over, and one row down. My brother made the deal with the caretaker, as my Dad walked down to visit his parents, a brother, and his step-sisters graves.

Once everything was settled, we went to see my Aunt and Uncle (Dad's Brother) that he hasn't spoken to in over 10 years. Dad knocked on the door, and his brother opened the door. In that moment, everything was forgiven. Ten years of silence over something that ultimately doesn't matter. Both, I think, realized this and they were talking again like nothing ever happened. Telling stories of when they were kids, and young men, until about 7pm.

We had a nice dinner, and drove home. The end of a very tough day.