It’s official… funerals suck. In other news, the sky is blue.

Today we bid farewell to my Aunt Gail. The memorial service was PACKED. Being family, we had good seats near the front, which makes the whole experience so much better, let me tell you. Oh wait, no. Much, much worse.

I was doing fine through the pastor talking about my aunt’s 18 years of service as a lay-assistant at the church. I even handled most of the sad music pretty well. What got me was the communion. The pastor used a relatively rare form of communion called intiction, which took slightly longer and since there were several Roman Catholics (myself included) that chose to get blessed instead of receiving communion in another church the line backed up quite a bit.

This caused a balance of time where people that just took communion would stop, hug my grandparents and uncle (who were sitting in or near the front pew) and tearily head away. I was doing OK for the first half hour or so, but after a bit this took a toll on my grandparents and related family. My grandpa is in a wheelchair, and he had wheeled himself off to the side so he could be out of the way for the communion service. As more people visited him he got more and more upset, and because of a lull in the communion he spent several minutes sitting by himself. My mom and aunt got out of the pews, went over and sat next to his wheelchair, both crying their eyes out. Heartwrenching.

The communion went on for over 45 minutes, and by the end I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house.

After the service, we headed to the cemetary where her ashes would be buried. It was the longest funeral procession I’ve EVER SEEN. I was told that some people had to park four blocks away from the cemetary. That’s a whole lot of love for my aunt! By the end of the day, everyone’s mood had turned from sad to reflective, so we sat around telling stories and laughing about the good times with my aunt.

She will be missed but she’s in a better place now… and that is a comforting thought.