Friday, December 2, 2011

end of a journey

Two and a half weeks ago, B's mother died.

Today, she was well and truly buried. Many family, some kind friends.

The priest, current incumbent at her old parish where she hasn't been for a while, said that today we lay to rest our sister and gave the name of one of her daughters instead. Ouch. Sense of vertigo among the mourners. Profuse apologies to B's sister later.

The Navy came to the gravesite three strong, saluted slowly, played Taps from a boombox, folded a flag, spoke briefly and formally in honor of "my shipmate" (nice phrase) and got the name right.

That's not the whole story by any means. B. has been spending much of the interval going through belongings at her apartment. So have her siblings. There's more. Tuesday is my turn: I'm going over there to facilitate having the piano moved to our house, and our existing piano swapped out somewhere else. We already have her microwave oven in substitution for our own old one. Etc. Photo albums too. B. prepared the photo collage for the memorial service. And so.

No comments:

Post a Comment