Saying Goodbye

I just got back from Sioux Falls attend­ing the funer­al of my cousin. What a day.

We woke up at 5:00 this morn­ing and got every­thing togeth­er and left at 5:30. Drove the 5 hours there and arrived around 10:30. Vis­it­ed with my Aunt and oth­er cousin. Talked about the good mem­o­ries we had and how exact­ly my cousin passed and what hap­pened in those few short weeks.

We wait­ed around then for some oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers to arrive (so they could fol­low us to the funer­al home–even though Sioux Falls is small, you can get lost eas­i­ly) We then arrived at the funer­al home and I was able to see my cous­in’s body and say goodbye.

I was­n’t ready for what I saw. She looked beau­ti­ful, but she looked so old. You could tell she fought a long hard bat­tle with can­cer. It was tough see­ing her so old. I always remem­bered the vibrant young woman who was always jok­ing and laugh­ing. She looked so dif­fer­ent lying there.

The min­is­ter came and took the fam­i­ly to a sep­a­rate room where we all had a pri­vate qui­et prayer (except where a cous­in’s cell phone went off and he decid­ed to “talk” to them on the phone dur­ing the prayer–I real­ly hate cell phones! At least he went to the oth­er side of the room. Although we could still hear him)

Then we were lead back to the chapel and had the ser­vice. The ser­vice was very nice. (Except when anoth­er cousin in that same “cell phone” family–his phone went off in the mid­dle of the ser­mon and was talk­ing to someone–did I men­tion I real­ly hate cell phones.…or should I say the peo­ple who don’t know how to turn them off in impor­tant places!)

Oth­er than that it went well. We all head­ed back to the house for refresh­ments. A few oth­er cousins final­ly found the place and we vis­it­ed with them.

Pret­ty soon 4 pm rolled around and we had to leave to start back. Our “late” cousins fol­lowed us and we all stopped at Burg­er Time for BIGGER BURGERS! I love those things. We final­ly have 9 in Min­neso­ta. We sat around and talked some more and caught up. We got the REAL sto­ry and not made up ones about the fam­i­ly (that nev­er keeps in touch with us!)

Some­thing I don’t get is why fam­i­ly feels that is has to lie to us and not tell us the truth about what is going on in their lives. Your my fam­i­ly, I love you know mat­ter what is going on (well, maybe). UGH!

Then we left Sioux Fall around 5:45 and got home at 10:15. Stopped 5 times for pot­ty breaks. So I am beat. Talk to you tomorrow!