There is nothing like attending a funeral to get you pondering your own. We drove up to the Grande Prairie area on Saturday to attend the memorial service and burial of Rob’s late wife’s Uncle Raymond. He was eighty-one years old and, ironically, it was a car accident that took his life. Usually when elderly people pass it seems to usually be related to illness and the wear and tear of so many years. I think of my own father who is slowly being robbed of life by pulmonary disease or my mother and her sister who have hypertension and a family history of strokes and heart disease. When did they stop being middle-aged? Of course, when did I become middle-aged myself? Am I going to know when that day arrives? When I am old like them? When my daughter will start to wonder when she will get that phone call telling her that I am gone, the same way I wait for that call myself?

The service took place in the Hythe Legion Hall. Like so many farming communities, every one knows everyone else, and their business, and the hall was packed to standing room. The family gathered in the lounge and since we were late, as always, we went to join them. The tradition is for the family to enter last and seat themselves in reserved rows at the front after filing past the congregants. I wasn’t overly apprehensive about being there. I have already met several of Rob’s in-laws including Shelley’s mother and stepfather, a sister and brother and one of the nieces. They were quite welcoming and though Rob tends to downplay the significance of this because generally most people are on their best behavior when first you meet them, I know from experience that good in-laws are not a given. Not that I buy into the in-law stereotype whole-heartedly. I think that it is a crap shoot really but it tips more to the good side than the bad.  I personally know more people who have wonderful to fair in-law relations than those that are truly awful. Still, I was a bit uncomfortable walking up with the family and sitting in the section that was saved for them. I was also keenly aware that little more than a year ago, Rob and the girls had been in this exact same place, taking this exact same walk for Shelley, and that many of the people who were attending now were there back then, and I couldn’t help but wonder what must be going through their minds.

The service was conducted by an older gentlemen, not a minister or anything of the like, but someone who clearly was used to conducting memorial services. He had, in fact, led the service for Shelley.  I kept a close eye on Rob. I am not sure how close he was to Raymond. Not really, though it is always disconcerting when someone you know but only on a “just so deep” level dies. It is not the same kind of sadness. It’s more like coming home and finding that someone has broken in and taken just one thing. You don’t notice outright. Can’t put your finger on exactly why things seem amiss, but there is that one piece missing from the jigsaw puzzle feeling that you just can’t shake off. I knew though that he couldn’t help but go back a year and remember the service for Shelley and when you go back, even fleetingly, the emotions are waiting for you because they always are. More loyal than any friendship you’ll ever have, that’s grief. I watched the girls a bit too. Jordan especially. Her grief is never too far from the surface. She still has the look in her eyes, lurking behind the brightness. Farron keeps it at bay by being in perpetual motion. I was able to do that myself when I was younger. Now I am a virtual empath, swamped by emotionally charged people and situations. I wondered aloud at one point this weekend if I would ever not be able to pick up other people’s pain like an XM satellite receiver. Rob says no. And would I want to be as cold to others’ pain as the majority of people seem to be as their worlds swirl around them as if they were the sun? I guess not, but it does make an event like Raymond’s memorial exhausting.

There was music, a eulogy given by two of Raymond’s nieces, a few scripture readings, more music and after the service, the hall was quickly transformed for lunch. The lunch, unfortunately, threw me. It caught Rob off guard because we haven’t been through any similar experience together yet and unsurprisingly, we don’t spend any more time than necessary discussing things like funerals. But I have been this way since my first experience with death at age eight. My dad’s younger brother died in a freak farm accident. He was my godfather and my hands down most favorite relative. Now that I am older I realize that I have partly looked for men who possessed similar traits as my Uncle Jimmy.

I don’t switch emotional gears easily. I need to wind down from highly charged events. The practice of going from grief to the light social interaction of the funeral dinner is too wide a chasm for me to cross quickly. My parents could never understand and it caused no little bit of friction. I can remember being sent to the car on one occasion though I can’t remember which relative’s funeral it was, and I earned a reputation of being incorrigibly shy amongst my extended family as at least half our gatherings were wake/funeral related. It didn’t help Saturday that I couldn’t eat a single thing being served. Farm folk, ironically really, don’t hold with veggies. Add to this a hyper five year old and I didn’t stand a chance. Rob managed to extricate himself from family and other acquaintances to rescue me. He generally goes practical when I am having one of my less than stoic, as he calls it, moments. We drove back to Beaverlodge for a veggie sub before heading to the cemetery.

After the interment there was a get together at the home of one of Shelley’s cousins. A mix of family and friends. I was my characteristic quiet. I need to assess and warm up. Katy is the same but where she can fly through the process in minutes, I need hours to several days worth of exposure. It sucks but it’s me. All in all, I did okay. Okay enough to earn actual applause for attending from Shelley’s family. At one point during the weekend Shelley’s sister Cindy told me she thought I was a very special person. As I have stated in the past, I am not special in any particular way. If Rob’s in-laws hadn’t been as open, accepting and inviting a group of people as they are, things could easily have ended differently. Their behavior just confirmed for me once again how special a person Shelley was.

But how has any of this led me to think about my last wishes for myself?

On Sunday, we gathered at Uncle Raymond’s farm to bury some of Shelley’s ashes near a tree that Raymond had planted in her memory. It stands right under the shade of the two large trees where she and Rob were married twenty-six years ago this past July. The farm had originally belonged to her grandparents and she had always felt that her grandmother, who she was quite close to, was still lingering there in spirit and she wanted to be there too. It was one of her last wishes. So Rob had brought her ashes along with us to conduct a little memorial and fulfill one of the two requests she had made before she died. As I stood in that shady place listening to Rob speak over the rustling leaves of the trees that sheltered the front yard, I realized that though I had spent some time thinking about the what ifs of dying, I hadn’t really considered what comes next for my earthly remains. I had always assumed that funerals and whatnot were for those left behind and not for the deceased, but both of my parents have their entire wake, funeral and burials scripted. There is really little for my siblings and I to do but follow the directions. My aunt has pre-planned, as they call it. I only know that I want to be cremated and having the experience I have had with burying Will, I have come to the conclusion that the interment of ashes is a silly thing to do. But where to be once I am dust? I don’t know. I told Rob that I haven’t been much of anywhere over the course of my life. I hadn’t any favorite or special place. He thought that perhaps it was because I haven’t been there yet. Maybe so. Bodes well for the long life we wish on each other too in some ways.

I am not really ready to think about my last wishes. I have too many others that need attending to right now, but the thought has been planted firmly.