I still say funeral

Henry's son-in-law, Steve, watches at the door of the hearse

It's all memorial services now; they don't use the word funeral much anymore.

But I do.

This obsession with euphemisms is becoming tiresome. Just call it what it is. It's a funeral.

I have a recipe called Funeral Potatoes and you cannot believe the uneasy laughter -- or outright chuckling -- that ensues whenever I say it.

But that's the name of the recipe. It's called that because it's so good, it will gladden the heart of any mourner who puts a pile of it on their plate, or a bite into their mouth.

I was under the impression that I had found the recipe in a cookbook entitled Food To Die For, given to me for Christmas by my daughter Stephanie in 2010.

Cousins Rhett and Ember made the most of a funeral situation

However, having got the cookbook down off the shelf and searched through it for the Funeral Potatoes recipe, and not finding it there, I've concluded that I must've come by it some other way.

But the recipe is all over the internet. Sometimes it's called Crack Potatoes but I'm not about to cave to the trend and start calling it that.

At any rate, in the Pirate's book, a funeral is a funeral is a funeral. 

And this past Thursday, we had a funeral for our Henry.

One wears black and tries not to laugh too loudly, although I find that funerals are a place of uncommon hilarity. Not sure why; I think it may be because the days leading up to a funeral are fraught with so much stress, that the actual day can come as a relief.

Dagny wore it first ... to my mother's funeral in 2020

You have accepted the death and done the myriad things, large and small, and seen to all of the details, and, as we said to one another several times throughout the day, It's almost over.

We were tired.

TG and I, plus Audrey and Dagny in their car, and Andrew and Ember and Guy coming from the other direction, all arrived in Greenville last Wednesday evening.

We checked into our hotels and went out to supper, enjoying a wonderful meal at La Parrilla. 

Back snug in our rooms -- for the temperatures were dropping and it would be bitterly cold the next day -- we tried to rest.

I was awake for most of the night but it was to be expected.

Henry in happier but lonelier days

But back to that cold weather forecast. We weren't twenty minutes down the road on Wednesday afternoon when TG announced that he'd forgotten his shoes at home.

By shoes, he meant his black dress (church) shoes. He wasn't barefoot.

Oh dear, I sighed. Are you going back? Or do you plan to go shopping in Greenville and buy a new pair?

I'm not going back, he said. And I'm not buying a new pair.

Me and my baby brother Shawn

Silence.

Then what? I said.

I'm going to see if Audrey can swing by and pick them up, he said.

Audrey would be several hours behind us but she already had a busy day. I called her.

Many things there were to be considered

She said she'd be glad to go by and pick up her dad's shoes. Sigh of relief.

About a half hour (give or take) after that, I began worrying that I was not going to be warm enough the next day, especially at the graveside.

I'd brought a long-sleeved black dress and my mink vest, and leather gloves.

And that was all.

Who was telling who what, we will never know

I called Audrey back. I asked whether, when she swung by the house on the way out of town to pick up her dad's shoes, she could also grab my full-length black velvet coat.

She said sure and I breathed yet another sigh of relief because that coat is warm and, looking at the forecast for Greenville being a high in the thirties the next day, even with bright sun, I knew I would need my coat.

It had not occurred to me to bring it. So I thanked TG for forgetting his shoes, and he thought that was so funny.

At any rate we got over to the church the next morning a little before ten. Family visitation began at eleven but I had to set up the memorabilia tables.

Audrey, Erica, and Dagny visiting with Rae Ellen

We'd brought some things from home, and we'd also gone out to my mother and Henry's house on Wednesday to pick up more things from Henry's children, who were staying there while they worked to process all of the things that are left after the end of not one but two long lives.

It didn't take long to put out the pictures and books and other things we'd deemed appropriate for folks to look at while they waited in the receiving line, which turned out to be not so much a formal line, as simply all of us milling around in what the church there calls the Fireplace Room.

Henry was there, looking sharp, and for about an hour or so, everyone crowded in to condole with us and pay their respects until time for the ... ahem ... funeral.

Ember is six and Rhett is four, so they were in the room there with all of us. Elliot and Guy, being two-year-olds, were playing down the hall in the nursery.

Henry's girls, hugging it out

It was the first funeral for each of them -- or at least, the first funeral that either of them will have any chance of remembering later -- and they were making some shrewd and observant remarks.

At one point, Ember was telling Rhett (or maybe it was the other way around) that Henry's soul was not with his body anymore. Can't argue with that.

Out of the mouths of babes.

Ember was wearing the black dress that Dagny wore to my mother's funeral five-plus years ago.

Chad, TG, and Steve await the progression of events

(Audrey pointed that out to Erica and Andrew and me later, when we were all looking at the pictures.)

Kay's and my little brother Shawn flew in from Galveston, Texas, to be with us.

The last time I saw Shawn was at our mother's funeral. I guess that's where we are now, in life: every wedding and every funeral turns into a de facto family reunion.

(And we reminded one another that, next time, it's likely to be a funeral/reunion for one of us. We're next! The next generation to go. Our children will perform these same sacred duties for us, and it won't be long.)

My brother-in-law Philippe greets Beth and Rae Ellen

Our Melanie was so ill that Stephanie and Joel and their family could not travel. Stephanie was heartbroken but there was nothing to be done. They need your prayers.

Henry had five children: four daughters and a son. Rae Ellen, Jane, Beth Ann, Laura, and John. His son was not able to attend the funeral, but the four girls, and one of their husbands, were there.

John and his four sisters are precious each in their own way, and we love them. The girls were heartbroken to be saying goodbye to their dad. They did all for him that they could, and he loved them too.

They lost their mother in 1981, when they were all still so young.

Henry lasted four days in assisted living

It was amusing to hear them (not at the funeral, but the day before and even a week before, when we saw them at their dad's house) talk about who was Dad's favorite and who was getting what, and so forth.

Henry's children are the quintessential close-bonded siblings. I've never known them not to be there for one another.

Eventually it was time for the service. Don't you love that moment when the family all file in to take their seats in the front pews? I am into the ceremony of that, but one feels self-conscious.

My niece Gena's husband, Damon, was close to Henry because Damon is good at troubleshooting tech problems, and lives only a few miles away from Henry.

Audrey and Erica and the children visited him two weeks ago

Many was the time that Henry reached out to Damon for help with a computer or TV issue.

So it was that Damon gave a wonderful -- and funny, and touching -- testimony of what Henry meant to him. We laughed and we cried.

It was all tears later when our Andrew sang My Saviour First of All. He made it to the last verse before emotions overcame him and he had to ask everyone to sing it with (and for) him.

It was perfect, though painful. But it was real, and that's what counts. He has sung at all four of his grandparents' funerals.

These are weighty matters, cousin

Once the funeral service was concluded and Henry was placed in the hearse for his last ride, we were grateful for the opportunity to stretch our legs before regrouping for the trip to the cemetery in Travelers Rest.

A tent with three sides had been set up for us, which offered some relief from the cold wind. The same pastor who preached my mother's funeral in October of 2020, said some words over our Henry.

He kept it brief due to the cold, but it was good and at the end we all sang How Great Thou Art before again being allowed to stretch and mill around for a bit before the next event of the day.

That event was the meal that had been prepared for our family and was ready to be served back at the church.

Andrew and TG helped to carry Grandpa

This is done for every funeral of this sizable church's membership, organized and executed by ladies in the deceased person's Sunday School class.

The meal was delicious and we had a great time talking and reminiscing.

Elliot enjoyed hitching a ride with my nephew Michael, who, due to a severe case of Guillain-Barré Syndrome over fifteen years ago, gets around in a motorized wheelchair.

No sooner would Michael set Elliot onto the floor, thinking they were done, than Skippy would say: Again.

And they would do it again.

Leaving Grandma and Grandpa's house for the last time

After the meal, we all went back out to our mother's and Henry's house for the last time.

I had already been and gone and had taken everything that was left to me, and that Henry's girls said I was welcome to take, of my mother's.

But my children had been invited to come too and each of them went away with something that will be a reminder to them of their last set of grandparents to move off the scene.

And that was sad, in the way it is when a house becomes a mere shell of what it once was. My mother kept a beautiful and well-appointed home, and Henry kept it clean and orderly -- and even did most of the yard work himself -- until perhaps the last six months.

Walking away from the site of many memories

No mean feat for a man in his nineties, but then Henry was fighting trim, and spry nearly until the end.

The day was closing then, and it was hard to go, but we did go. The house will be put on the market and another family will buy it and soon they will be living there, and I'll never have occasion to darken the door again.

My mother used to be sitting in her recliner as I arrived, and she'd look over to the storm door -- her pretty, shiny door that she was so proud of when she got it -- and smile real big and jump up to come and let me in.

Never again. As we said several times that day: It's the end of an era.

My sister's family sent this wreath for the Dykstra family

But we "... sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

Wherefore comfort one another with these words. (I Thessalonians 4:13-18)

So that is all for now ... and we will rejoice in the truth until the day break, and the shadows flee away.

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Happy Tuesday