Funeral

My mom's funeral mass was at St. Edmond's Catholic church this morning at 11am. Pall bearers arrived at 9:15am in a biting wind with temperatures around 15F. We carried the the casket from the hearse to the altar around 9:30am. A private viewing followed until 10am, followed by a public viewing until just about 11am.

The funeral mass was well-done. The priest was one that knew my mother well and he delivered a touching homily/eulogy. The cantor was talented and did a respectable Ave Maria. A long-time friend of my mother, Jim Chmelik, gave a stirring eulogy at the end of the mass. Jim has known my mom for going on 40 years. They met when they both worked a warehouse job in Gaithersburg, MD. Oddly enough, Jim now lives in Idaho and one of his sons goes to Walla Walla Community College. A weird coincidence to say the least.

After the mass, we put the casket back into the hearse. The interment will be tomorrow morning. Folks gathered at my mom's house afterwards. We put out some trays of Mexican food from La Tonalteca, one of my mom's favorite restaurants. It's rare for all of us to be in the same location. We had a nice time catching up. My sister Kathy managed to get a photo of a lot of us:

We spent the rest of the day there with people trickling away until it was just my family, Jo-Anne's family and Kathy. The lack of sleep caught up with me and I fell asleep on a love seat on the sun porch for 4 hours. I suppose the rest of them had a nice time, haha. My sister Kathy learned how to "floss":