The burial (RL4)

It was sort of a late night, and we had to get up early for the burial, because it was early to begin with, but also because it was quite far across town from our hotel. Then I went to the wrong cemetery (the two are side by side), but even once I got to the right cemetery I went to the wrong funeral, as there were two, and the one I belonged at wasn't as visible as the other. The problem then was that I got blocked in at that wrong funeral (with those narrow cemetery roads and cars parked on both sides of the "street"), so I had to back out and drive backwards about fifty yards (it was that or drive up onto the grass and over graves to get around a car... NOT a good karmic idea), through cars and people. As I'm not very good at backing up over long distances, I was rather fearful of creating cause for another funeral while trying to get to the funeral I should have been at to begin with. Add to this the fact that my cousin called me to say she could see me and that I was at the wrong funeral and that I should drive to her waving arm that I still couldn't see from my vantage point. And also that my sister, who was a few minutes behind me, was expecting a call from me any moment with directions to which cemetery entrance to take and exactly where the grave was located. Two things I hadn't exactly gotten right just yet.

So my sister and I barely got to the burial on time. Everyone else was there already and wondering about us. And not a minute after we got there they started the grave side services. It was as somber as the funeral mass in terms of raw emotion, but there was one thing that really rubbed me the wrong way... the dirt. You know, the little bucket of dirt used for family to scatter over the casket (or urn in this case). It was this hard, chunky, dry, dusty clay. It seemed strangely chintzy. Like they just grabbed something from the first pile of dirt they found. Probably it was from the very hole they dug for grandma, but it just seemed like we should have been using better dirt. You know, like, sorry we have to put you in the ground grandma, but don't worry cause we're using the best dirt on the planet. I was just miffed by the dirt quality. Struck me wrong. Sorry.

Shortly following services, we gathered for a traditional group photo that came out pretty decent, which it should have I suppose, because a professional (my sister's boyfriend) snapped the photo.



I say traditional because my dad has all these group photos from post-funerals on his wall (like that's the only time the family gets together, when someone dies), so it was pretty much expected that we do this, though I've been to many other funerals where taking pictures was the last thing on anybody's mind. Don't get me wrong, I'm very glad we did it, but I've never seen anyone else do it. Are we alone in this practice?

After pictures we had yet another huge family meal, as we all went to breakfast. Or brunch at least. It took so long to get us seated and we were there far into lunch, and so many of us (myself included) ordered from the lunch menu, we should probably call it brunch.

Following brunch, I took my sister and her boyfriend, along with the kids of course, up to the mountains for some site seeing as they're scheduled to leave tomorrow. We spent several hours up there, enjoying the view, the cooler temperatures (79 in the mountains vs 105 down in the valley), and some trail hiking. It was a good afternoon, but we had further plans to attend to, so we sort of had to rush down the mountain, barely making it to our dinner plans.

Sis and I have close family friends in Tucson that I call "multi-generational friends". Our parents were friends with these folks before we were born, we became friends with them (and their children) as we became adults, and our children are now friends with them as well. So we always make it a point to do dinner with them at least one evening while we're out here, and tonight was that traditional event. But I think we were all rather zonked from the day's events because this was the first time in recent memory that we left their house before midnight. Although we did also have to be up very early. So maybe it was a little of both.