Images
I went with every intention of staying…I went to pay my respects to a life well lived. A woman who raised a strong Irish Catholic family full of ideals and accomplishments and joy in one another. She was a great Mom. She lived to enjoy 17 grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren. She was married to the love of her life for 62 years. She’s resting in peace now.
And tonight was the visitation where family and friends gathered at the funeral home to remember her.
I stayed long enough to see the family and tell them how sorry I was for the loss of such an important person in their lives.
I couldn’t stay beyond that because of the images. Five days short of 41/2 years ago, the same funeral home provided a private parlor for me to say my final good-byes to Leroy.
I guess I thought I’d locked away that day. I was wrong.
February 12, 2013 @ 2:15 pm
I understand your feelings. The funeral home where we gathered for Jim is visible from one of my office windows and I have to pass it to and from work. It is such sadness to revisit these places .
February 12, 2013 @ 11:48 am
Years ago, someone told me that one of the reasons families have funerals in a funeral home is that they can’t bear to go to church again after the service for a loved one. There are ghosts in so many places.
February 11, 2013 @ 9:18 pm
It never is easy, the images remain etched in memory, a smell, a color, a certain movement, not to mention the familiar places, all can trigger the memory to tumble out.
Sometimes it seems to be all just a walking memory.
February 11, 2013 @ 8:34 pm
18 months ago today my husband died suddenly in our home. I was certain I would die first because I’d had an aggresive form of breast cancer years before.
My mother said losing a loved one doesn’t get easier. You just get used to it.
She was half right.