November 12, 2015

 Today was long.

I woke up at the normal time and got ready. I tried on various combinations of dress clothes last night and settled on my suit. I also settled on the idea of wearing my regular clothes for the two hour drive and then changing once we got there. One because wearing a suit isn't that comfortable. And two, because I didn't want to wrinkle my clothes.

To get down to my aunt's house I followed my dad. My sister rode with me and my dad had my step-mom and brother. When we got down there we stood around and talked for a little bit before having lunch and then changing so we could go to the church. Once there we stood around for quite a bit longer before going out to the small area where my uncle's ashes are going to be buried. He was in the Vietnam War so a couple soldiers came and folded a flag while a third one played Taps. It sounded amazing but I learned later it sounded so good because it was a recording. The bugle just acted like a speaker. Interesting.

I service was after this and it was really nice. There was live because before during and at the end with a piano, violin, and cello. The music was really good and the musicians played it well. Two pastors conducted the service, one is the current pastor at the church and the other was the pastor who married my aunt and uncle thirty years ago. They took turns and it worked out well. There was a mix between serious stuff and funny stuff, which is how it should be. They also read what my aunt, cousin, my uncle's sister, and one of my uncle's nephews on his side of the family, wrote about my uncle. I appreciated this a lot more than having to watch my aunt and cousin get up and talk. That would have been far too emotional.

After the service there was a reception and that lasted a really long time because there were so many people. I think there were at least 300 people at the service and a decent amount of them stopped by the reception. We probably got back to my aunt's house after five o'clock. We changed clothes and then sat around for a bit before eating leftovers from lunch.

I entertained the cat for awhile but we needed to leave so we slowly started that process. It probably took at least a half an hour from the time we decided to leave to actually making it out the door. That's how it seems to go at any family function.

About halfway home we stopped to get gas and ate a real dinner at Spangles. Delicious. We got back into town a little after 10:30PM and after dropping my sister off I headed home. I was not expecting it to be a whole day event. The service was at two o'clock and I figured we would be home around 5:30PM. 7:00PM at the latest. But that wasn't the case. And I can't really complain because it's family and that's just what you do. But I am completely beat right now. It's tempting to take tomorrow morning off as well just so I can sleep in. I won't, intentionally anyway, but it is tempting.