It is incredibly difficult to stand in a receiving line, shake hands with people you met when you were "this big" (with cheek pinching) and see the tears in their eyes and the grieving on their faces.
As your older brother stands next to you sobbing.
I kept it together today. I'm not really sure how. No tears (until now). I think that it was important for me to be strong. My dad was. My mom was too.
For a woman who lived to see her hundredth birthday a week ago today, she had about 40 people come to her wake. My Nana looked beautiful and truthfully just how I remember her. If that is at all possible because the whole thing skeeves me out. I brought my camera to take a picture of her casket rumored to be hot pink, like her bathroom once was. I ended up leaving it in the car because taking a picture of my deceased Nana, just seemed wrong on many levels.
She made her own funeral arrangements in 1990 and picked out everything. The funeral director told us a story of how he sat in her 95 degree kitchen going over all the choices with her. You could tell. Nothing screams little Italian like bronze/silver casket that glistens in orchid out in the sun. (or so I'm told)
She didn't pick her own clothing. My mom chose a lovely blue dress with small flowers on it and beige crochet sweater, not unlike the ones she always wore. I swear, she looked like she would sit up at any moment and point her arthritic finger at my dad and say something like "JUNIOR, GET OVER HERE AND GIVE YOUR MOTHER A KISS." I had to keep glancing over there, just to be sure she wasn't doing such when we weren't looking.
I found it interesting that the, shall we call them, older crowd, discuss at will, medical aliments, costs of elder care and prostates. It really proved to me that no matter how old you get, your parents can still embarrass you.
That and when you have to leave in a hurry, your mother might give you directions to the highway, omitting a very important LEFT. Thank goodness for my trust MAP book.
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