Planning
This will have to be short as I’m on a public library computer in Parkersburg. I drove up from Texas on Sunday, stayed overnight in Jackson but was dismayed to find their local Kinkos had no macs. Then on to Nashville where two more kinkos HAD macs, but they had recently ripped out all of the software and hadn’t reinstalled it. Then on to Bowling Green where – you guessed it – they had Macs, but not Filemaker Pro (the application I NEEDED to use) and finally to Louisville to a Kinkos WITH a mac and WITH filemaker – the only thing was I had to teach the two ladies in front of me how to scan their photographs (which I did) and finally I was able to work on my sales database for the first time in days.
Enforced stopping is not a bad thing, but I think that, along with the state that my mind is currently in, really affected my judgement and later that evening I had a fender bender in Kentucky as I was crossing into WV. I hit a car – ran a red light. I saw it and it didn’t even register. No one was hurt, and aside from my air bags deploying (damn!) there was actually very little damage. Very lucky. The car runs fine (even though it looks a bit banged up in the front) and I continued to WV Monday night.
Yesterday was funeral planning. It will be a different kind of funeral. I’m not sure if many of you remember when my brother died – I dearly wanted to say a few words at his funeral but my sister in law felt it wouldn’t be right, and the minister told us there wasn’t enough time (however there was time for her college roommate’s husband to speak for 15 minutes…)
At any rate, this funeral will be more of a memorial service with folks speaking about mom, remembering things about her – she was such a funny woman and loved a good story. Then we’ll go on to the cemetary and release a bunch of pink and white and purple balloons (the kids will get to do this) and I KNOW that would make mom smile! Then back to the house where I’m staying – which is such a kindness – to have folks over for the devouring of the fried chicken (a family tradition)
With any luck I’ll be home on Sunday night. I miss it. I have literally HUNDREDS of books to send out (more about that later) and so much work to catch up on that it’s not even funny. And classes starting in June. Well, I’d rather be busy than bored!!
Thank you so much to everyone who wrote with such kind thoughts – they really mean a great deal to me – especially being away from Gerry and the kids (and my good friends back home) right now. I feel very alone. My cousin is here – she’s more like a sister – and it feels odd because we are the last two left in the family from my mom’s side. I think it will be a small funeral, but a nice one.
I’m so glad that I rushed the book a bit to have it out in time for mom to see it – it gave her great joy (especially the photo of my father) and it’s worth dealing with the typo angst if it meant she got to see it ‘finished!’