This post is about my cousins' mother sort of. I know you're doing the family tree. She and my mother's half brother were a couple for something like thirty years. And let me tell you that she put of with a lot of total junk and then she got the @$$. It was way overdue. I hadn't seen her in years and years. I sent flowers when her mother passed away. You know how it is. You hear about her, and you say, "Oh, I hope she's doing well." That's all.
Then you get the call. Friday morning she got up like normal and by 10 PM she was in a coma. It was a massive coronary. The type they say you don't even feel. The doctors said there was no hope she wouldn't even make it through the night. Doctors are frequently wrong though this time they were was very close to being perfect.
She was very young, 64 and it was sudden. One day you are fine, the next you're in intensive care with no chance of coming out of a coma. My Mom was with Pat when she died like the long-lost sister that she was. Family is more than blood so we trekked about about 50 miles one way on Thursday for the viewing and Friday for the burial, and endured near re-birthing (more to come.) I wish Pkin would have come but he doesn't do funerals because his father and uncle died when he was young and he was raised Jehovah's Witness. He doesn't know that funerals are the saddest and most hopeful times in your life, ironically. They remind you to make the most of your own life and to value your family and friends because both are so fleeting.
Enough of the serious: The viewing was led by Pastor Willie. Apparently in Willie's previous life he was incarcerated and god found him. I like that god continues to look in the most needful places, even that gives me hope. Well, Willie found god in a big way and now he has a church where his goal is to help others find god. Pat found god three and a half years ago. Good for her! More power to her! Well, Willie and then the stand-in pastor on Friday were intent on finding god in the rest of us and we were not cooperating. We're heathens! Actually, we're Catholics. OK, that's the same thing. Pkin wants to be Buddhist. He has a Buddha statue with red lanterns and a yarmulke. Buddha's not wearing it, don't worry, we are respectful. Anyway it was a very unfruitful time for Pastor Willie's church. Heck, they didn't even get dinner. I know this because we stopped to eat before we went to the house for the after funeral stuff and Pastor Number Two and musician were eating. They tried one last time, subtly, for a conversion. Nope, it didn't work! Boo was turned off by the ARCH - angel comment. Apparently Pastor Willie's conversion didn't not include proper grammar. Again, the snobby Catholicism rears it's head.
I'll say one thing, Catholic cemeteries are much nicer places of business. At this place that is called "Flower Mountains" or something like it it is all about the nickle and the dime. Time is counted and charged in minutes and everything has a price. I'm sure you pay more for four ushers than for six, although no one has actually carried a coffin in about 30 years. I love the old ways, pallbearers and actually straining under the weight of a massive wooden box. You're crying already so you might as well have sore muscles too. My grandmother on my father's side was buried out of an older church that had a short stairway. There was carrying. Thank goodness she had lots of kids and grandkids and great-grandkids. My other grandmother had a ground level church and a wheeled trundle but it rained. It should always rain at a funeral. You need to ruin your shoes and your dress just as the tears that run down your face ruin makeup, if you wore it. I like the Jewish practice of covering mirrors and not even brushing your hair. That's mourning!
I'm not really obsessed with death -- I'm obsessed with life and it's all one coin, two side but still the same coin.
Anyway, I better die during the rainy season and I hope that Pkin goes to the services.
And now, I hope that my cousins John, Jaime and Charlene are crying a little less today but I know that I'm crying still so they must be using tissues by the box. Let's pray, in our own ways, for Pat and for ourselves.
