Funerals Are Horrible

My mother passed away on December 8, at about 1:30 in the morning.

My father died about 8 years ago, and I am an only child, so I am now alone. Well, except for my husband and children. And my two aunts, one uncle, cousin, her husband and her two kids...but it's still a very lonely feeling. I may be nearly 40, but I feel like an orphan.

It's been a rough couple of weeks. I had to plan my mom's funeral. She did most of the arrangements, including the important part of paying for it, but I had to choose the final details, call people and tell them about her death, go to the cemetery and pay them to dig a hole next to my dad. I did the best that I could, but somehow I feel that I fell short of what could have been done.

Mostly, I was unhappy with the memorial service. My mom didn't belong to a church, but we do. I wanted to have our own church pastor conduct the service. But two days before her death, my home phone quit working and the phone company couldn't restore it till five days later. The funeral director tried to call our church, but the message didn't go through. So we had one of those well-meaning but generic services, a "fill in the blank." You know the kind.

"We are gathered here to pay respects to -----. She was born in ----- on -----, she was married to -----, her children were -----, and she liked to ----- and -----."

Well, our church pastor, Rev. Joe Redmond, called me yesterday and offered to come out to our house and give me a book called "Good Grief" to help me through. He also offered to conduct a short memorial service at our house for just our family. I thought that was sweet, though I didn't really see the point. Still, we went through it. The service was kind of odd; I am not accustomed to having church services in my living room. Also my cat Sterling kept meowing loudly and making a pest of himself during the whole thing, making us smile during this serious occasion. I think I would have preferred just having him there to chat with about my mom and her life. I think her life was really interesting, and I'm going to have to write down as much as I can remember before my brain cells muddle it up.

Here is her wedding photo:



I've been told I look like her. It always kind of bugs me -- my mom wasn't really a pretty woman, by general standards of beauty. She was, however, absolutely stunningly beautiful on the inside. If I aspire to "look like" my mom, that is how I want to do it -- in my heart.