Happy birthday to Gramps who shares his birthday with Martin Luther King, Jr.! Someone is closing in on a certain milestone birthday next year…we promise there won’t be too much black involved in the celebration! 🙂
I think our dear readers can imagine what we were doing today based on yesterday’s BLOG entry. Aunt Judy’s funeral was today in Fayetteville and Daddy was tapped to man the rails on the casket. Father Kelly of St. Patrick’s in Fayetteville presided over the ceremony…he’s another one of the really good priests who served Mommy when she went to St. Patrick’s.
The first part of the funeral was a service at the funeral home’s chapel which was actually rather nice and much better than I would have expected. The service was a variation on a Catholic funeral Mass. Daddy also had a chance to give his first eulogy which you can read if you wish (it’s not exactly what I said that day but it’s close enough for government work…I was shooting from the heart and the hip up there, as it were!).
After the service, we manned the casket and loaded it into the hearse for her final trip through the streets of Fayetteville. The Cumberland County Sheriffs seconded four deputies who cleared the way for us to the cemetery on Raeford Road (a good 10-15 minutes from downtown where the funeral home was on Ramsey Street).
Once at the cemetery, it was time to pull the casket out and lay it on a platform near the graveside where Father Kelly gave the final funeral service. One nice twist that I wasn’t expecting was that Aunt Judy’s funeral flag was in brought in and presented to Lee on behalf of the President and a grateful nation. That was a very nice touch…
After the graveside service, we retired to Aunt Judy’s house for some time together and refreshments. Throughout the funeral and afterward, Nicholas was a little angel. Other than a squawk for food/formula, he was generally a content little guy and was happy for cuddling and play time. For his first funeral, he certainly comported himself well…