A FUNERAL DAY AND MORE

This morning Joe and I attended my uncle's funeral.  It was very sad.  When I went in and saw him in the coffin I broke down.  He looked just like my dad laying there.  They could have been twins.  It was hard.

The good part was I had a chance to be with my three aunts (the only siblings left of 13) and a whole room full of my cousins, most of whom I had not seen in 15-20 years or more.  I have the three sweetest aunts imaginable and I'm so glad I had a chance to be with them.

The funeral procession to the cemetary was huge.  We were car number 20 out of 32.  Every time we went through an intersection, people would look and look and you could see them counting the cars.  Occasionally you would see someone mouth the word "Wow"!  We were told the cemetary was "right down the street" from the funeral home, but it took 20 minutes and a lot of twists and turns to get there.

My cousin Butch was having a luncheon at his house, but we just wanted to go home.  So we headed out to go home and change our clothes.  Then we went to lunch at Arby's.

 

I am not a big fan of Arby's.  Although the food and service are good, their prices are high if you do not have a coupon.  Joe had never been there, though, and wanted to try it.  Lunch for the two of us was over $15 which I thought was a bit much for two sandwiches and fries.  The restaurant is a pretty cool building though.  I love the windows and ceiling.  And because it's Philly there are Liberty Bells all over the place.

 

Arby's has a bell by the door.  If you like the food and service, you ring the bell as you leave.  Of course Joe had to ring it. (Sorry the picture is so blurry.)

Joe made a phone call to the pharmacy when he got home.  He had gotten only part of his prescription and was looking for the rest of it.  It had been sent to the Queen's Village store instead of the Bridesburg one, so we took a ride down to South Philly to pick it up.  I got off at the wrong exit and we ended up driving all over center city trying to find the right place.  We knew it was on 2nd Street, but because of buildings the street would start and stop so we were on every street imaginable before we got there.  We drove through Chinatown for part of it.

 

And saw this really interesting building when I was stopped for a red light at 2nd and Chestnut.

 

Coming home we drove along the Delaware River and I saw so many shots that I would love to have taken.  I think one Saturday I will go down, park somewhere, and walk along the river getting some good pictures.  If you don't live in Philly, you have no idea just how beautiful this city is.

We stopped at Dollar Tree to get a couple of bottles of liquid hand soap.  But of course we came away with $20 of things.  I don't know about you, but I just cannot go in a dollar store and not buy stuff.  The prices are so good.  One of the things I got was this cute little solar light which I put in the front window.  It was too late in the day for it to get enough sun to light up tonight, but it will be great tomorrow.  I will have to take a picture of it in the daylight because it really is nice looking with my solar flower.

So now I am going to make dinner and get to cleaning the house.  It is terrible!  I am not kidding.  Please don't report me to the hoarders television program.  Ha, ha.

Have a good evening everyone.  Tomorrow it is back to work at the Richmond Branch for me.

High of 90 degrees at 4:25 p.m.  Partly cloudy.

FUNERAL

We went to Jerry's funeral this morning.  There weren't many people there.  I guess most people had to work today and so went to the viewing last night.

Almost all of the nieces and nephews and their spouses were there, along with Joe's two sisters, some of Jerry's friends and people from his church.  I had never been to a Latter Day Saints funeral before, but it was very much like any other Protestant funeral to which I have been.

Before the service I had called Human Resources to find out if I could use funeral leave for a few hours or if I had to take the whole day.  They didn't know because the person I needed to speak to was out of the office.  I called back after the service and was told I could take an entire day as funeral leave, or I could take four hours of vacation time.  (I have only a week of vacation time left, which I am taking next week.)  I told Susan at Human Resources we were short handed and she said that wasn't my fault and the branch should call for coverage assistance if they needed it.  

Joe's sister, Maria, also works for the city and, in fact, is in the same union I am.  She got upset about how my boss was treating me and firmly told me I was entitled to a funeral leave day.  (She and I had both gotten notes from the funeral director that we were there for our brother-in-law's funeral.)  That I shouldn't give up my vacation time and have to take leave without pay next week.  Then Joe told me he was going to the luncheon afterwards and I needed to show up with him.  So I ended up calling work and telling the children's librarian (my boss is on vacation this week) that I needed to take the day off.   

Now I am concerned about going in to work tomorrow and the feed back.  But I feel that as a Christian wife if my husband was that adamant about me being with him, then that was where I should be.  He never asks anything of me.  This was unusual.  I have to leave it in God's hands and stop worrying about it.  But that is hard for me to do.

It turns out that my mother-in-law needed a ride to the restaurant and then home so it helped her out too that I stuck around.  Well, we will see what tomorrow brings.

IT'S OVER

Everything is finally over for our sad weekend.  The viewing last night was very long.  Joe's family was OK except for a few people, but we just avoided them.  The two people he supposedly hurt were fine with him, said he made a mistake posting on facebook, but who doesn't and everything was cool.  Joe got to see his aunt and lots of his cousins which was very nice for him.  Most of the time I just sat there by myself.  The Marine League and the American Legion were there and each had a military ceremony for him.  Dad was a two-time recipient of the purple heart plus many other medals for his work in Viet Nam.  The ceremonies were very nice and very moving.

We were told last night to go directly to the church today instead of the funeral home, which we did.  Two of our closest friends from our church were there for us and we sat toward the back of the church with them.  We didn't know that the entire family had met at the funeral home, came in with the coffin and sat together at the front of the church.  Oh well.  We didn't want to sit with them anyway.  The service was very hard to sit through, but  we got through it.  Everyone was invited back to Joe's nephew's house, but we didn't go.  Instead we took our friends to lunch and then went home and took naps.

Dad is being cremated and the actual interment is happening on Tuesday.  Joe says we are not going to that.  Tuesday is also the day I have an appointment to see my surgeon for my second check-up and hopefully will get the OK to return to work.  He says that is more important and his dad would feel the same way.  He is right.  His dad was always looking out for me and was very concerned that I recover from this surgery.  He used to call me even from the hospital to see how I was feeling.

We are exhausted both physically and emotionally.  We thank you all for surrounding us with your prayers.  We couldn't have made it through otherwise.  We want this all to be over and to start living our lives again without a lot of turmoil.