Friday, February 27, 2009

I hope I look as good as she did!

This has got to have been the most amazing woman that I will ever have known. She was my Great Aunt Mae!

I loved this woman. She was like a grandma to me. We would go to her condo and swim until our hands and feet were pruny. She would always have a flowered swim cap for me to wear so my hair wouldn't get all tangled in the pool. I would spend weekends with her once in a while. She would take me to the rock museum or to Chicago to a restaurant. It was the first time that I had ever had something called yam chips. They were potato chips made out of yams. We would get our hair done together. She taught me how to make scrambled eggs. At night, we would sit and eat peanut butter toast and watch Jeopardy while she crocheted something for a friend or up and coming baby. She would then turn off the coo coo clock so it wouldn't go off all night and scare me. She is forever embedded into my childhood memories.

She was always the biggest traveler. She has been to every continent, multiple times. I believe that it was said that she traveled to over 147 countries in her life time. After 96 years of living, she went on to her farthest and grandest journey, to be with our Jesus. It seems that heaven was the only place left for her to go! When her time came, I knew that I wanted to be at the funeral.


*Before I go on with my story, I want to apologize. I am about to tell you what happens when you go to the funeral of your deceased aunt with your 4 children. It is the raw truth. Raw, uncensored, and true. I have love, honor, and respect for my dearly departed, but as a mother-of-4 I am always shocked back into reality.

Before we took our trip to Chicago, dear husband and I decided to prep the kids for the funeral. We like to sit down as a family and discuss what they are about to do and how the proper way to act. We discussed the funeral and how it would resemble a church service. We discussed how we need to be respectful and quiet. We told them how some people might be crying because they are going to miss the one who died. We, hubby and I, were feeling quite good about how we handled prepping the kids for the reality of what they were about to see.

As I drove to the funeral, I realized that we forgot to include one very important detail of the funeral. We forgot to tell the kids that they were about to see a real dead body in front of the church! No problem, I thought. I will just talk them through it now. I told them. I told them of how Aunt Mae will be in front of the church in a casket. She looks like she's sleeping, but she's really not even in there anymore. She's living with Jesus now.

No sweat! They got it. We were home free! Sort of.......

We arrived at the the church, late. Whoops! I got lost while using GPS! (Another story for another blog.) The service had already started and they already closed the casket. We snuck into the pew and as quietly as a mother and her 4 children could, we got jackets off and coloring books out. Then it happened!

"Mommy?" in a half shouting whisper.

"What?" I whisper back with one finger over my lips, and a begging look on my face.

"Where is the dead body?" They asked.

Mortified I answer, "In the casket. No more talking!"

2 minutes later.......

"Mommy!" my 3 year old who can't whisper to save her life asks.

"What!" I am now giving the threat of death look, because I know what is going to be asked.

"I wanna see the dead body!" again, this kid doesn't know how to whisper.

"Do not say that again!" I whisper in my most serious of whispering voices.

"But, why? I wanna see the dead body!" she says.

This went on the whole time. Every quiet moment, which is pretty much the entire service since it was a very traditional church, my kids would ask the same question, over and over. The funeral soon ends, thank God. I couldn't have been more mortified in my life! I thought that it couldn't get worse. It did.

When the funeral ended we had to hurry to our car in order to get into the funeral procession for the cemetery. We, of course, had to park across the street. I was trying to rush the kids along when a couple, not one, a couple of the kids started to cry. And I mean really cry! I look around and ask what the problem was.

"We didn't get to see the dead body!!!!!" they cried.

We had a very lonnnngggg ride to the cemetery. They were mournful alright. They cried almost the whole ride!

I almost pray that God let Aunt Mae peek in on us during the funeral. I hope that she was sitting with Jesus and laughing.

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