Just a few thoughts on my aunt's memorial service last week, before moving on.

The mausoleum building was constructed out of native flagstone. Light tan layers of stones of alternating thickness. Looked terribly familiar, and wasn't until quite a bit later I realized why. Almost the exact same architecture as most of the buildings on the Alma Mater campus. Just less red stone.

They had two sign-in books as you entered, and youngest son's name and mine are entered twice, since we went into the right line and signed in, and the wife signed in the whole family on the left book.

We ended up following my folks into the chambers on the left, waiting for almost three-quarters of an hour standing amidst the mausoleum graves. Watching my aunt's great-grandsons running their fingers along the metal names and numbers attached to the crypt doors. Noticing at least two married couples where the wife lived 31 years alone after her husband died, and yet, here she is, beside him at last.

There were probably 40-50 people waiting in the wings there, and the wife, I and my sister knew less than a dozen. Awkward, but that's how it is with big families in the modern age. Most were standing or seated in little family pods, as we were. Give credit to my aunt's eldest granddaughter, who went around and introduced herself to each and every person she didn't recognize.

They had set out a few items of my aunt's on display. First I recognized was a clay jug. I had almost forgotten it, but it had a permanent place on the frontispiece of her fireplace. Sometime, she had taken a heavy glass jug and coated it with a thick layer of grey modeling clay. And then pressed into it the small tokens she had accummulated in her life, most probably from children and grand-children. Small plastic and metal pins and toys, the old miniature license plate keychains you used to get in that state. Whether the clay was then fired, or simply hardened by the fires in the fireplace I do not know, but all those little tokens and charms are permanently embossed, now.

As we moved in line into the chapel, we passed one of her quilts. One that was given to her by relatives, rather than one she had made herself. Old photographs of their life together, starting with the two-room log cabin they had first lived in on the ranch, had been transferred onto cloth, and then each linen photograph was framed on coloured cloth in the squares of the quilt. The entire life of a family there in cloth.

The chapel ceiling was extremely peaked. As the service progressed, I mentally measured the height behind the Reverend at 20 meters. At least five stories of open, pale stone. The main wall was recessed behind the altar, with other stone walls filling in from the sides. Beween these verticle walls of stone were tall, narrow stained glass windows, colouring the afternoon sun as it lit the room.

My aunt's photograph sat on the alter, framed by two red tapers that were already half burned, and two small red bouquets. Two larger red flower arrangements stood off to the side.

They had a large section of the pews roped off, and the ushers guided the family members into it. But I recognized one of my cousins and his wife sitting across the way, and wondered if perhaps we should have been in the general audience, rather than "family". Just how distant do you have to be to no longer be "family"?

The service was conducted by the same young female Reverend as my other aunt's funeral. Don't know if this aunt actually attended this woman's church, but it turns out the reverend's family, also. Something we just learned while waiting in the mausoleums, and something she apparently learned as she prepared for this service. The two women had never met, but it somehow made the service more personal. Macabre as it may be, I suspect we will be seeing more of this reverend at family funerals, knowing now that she's kin.

Three grandchildren got up and spoke of some their fonder memories of their grandparents. When you're 97, I guess it's no surprise that your older grandchildren are grandparents themselves, now. I almost recognized the first to speak. At all the family gatherings, my brother and I always joined up with two cousins who were also brothers, their ages nicely staggered with ours. Technically, their mother was our cousin, and they were our cousins once removed, but that never mattered whilst chasing frogs or having pinecone wars, or having battles in the hayloft, or swinging from a rope high in the barn, from one hayloft to the other. This was one of them, but I had to whisper aside to find out which.

Afterwards, however, he recognized me right off. Still driving truck, but owns his own rigs now. Was surprised to find his wife is an avian rehabilitator, one of the folks who receives and tends for the injured and orphaned birds that folks like me pick up. So, after the reception line, out on the sidewalk in the chilly breeze, I actually had someone to talk to. And it appeared she was just as lost and uncomfortable, and happy to talk shop.

In his eulogy, my cousin mentioned many things that I also remembered. The watermelon picnics. The hikes into the fields. But I did not know that she had hiked Zebulon's Mountain, not once, but three times. Nor did I know the Governor once helicoptered in to land in her yard, to dedicate the new highway.

Afterwards, I also stopped briefly to thank another granddaughter who had spoken at the service (abandoning the wife and sons in the reception line, which I'm sure they appreciated) who would again be a first cousin once removed, but other than that, I have no idea who she is. Thanked her for the poem she had read (along the lines of "I'm spending Christmas with Jesus). She, however, was terribly apologetic about having broken down several times while reciting it.

Hey, the emotions were true. What does it matter?

The longer you live, the more funerals you get to attend. Which is good, I guess, given the alternative. Sister and I actually talked about eventually having to prepare services for our own folks who have, perhaps with a little sadistic glee and a lot of denial, made absolutely no preparations of their own. But so far, I have only attended one Christian funeral where folks were truly happy that the deceased had moved on to what they believe is a better existence. This one was close, with most folks sharing a general sense of relief, and agreement that it was finally time. (Although family rumor has it that one heir was hoping she would last into the new year, for better tax breaks. And that the others were quite pleased that my aunt decided to leave just a few days earlier, just to spite him.)