From Morning to Night...

If anyone had told me a week ago that I would be in the middle of helping to plan my grandma's funeral right now, I wouldn't have believed them. But so it is.

Yesterday my grandma's one surviving sister flew in with her daughter. We had to sit my aunt down in the airport in a semi-quiet corner and tell her about my grandma's passing. There is no easy way to do that and it was very hard. I won't go into too much detail. But my aunt is an amazing, positive person, and after the initial shock and tears she did OK.

My 2 aunts from out-of-town, my mom, my uncle, and I went to the funeral home and made the necessary decisions. It was quite easy (in the logistical sense) this time since we just did this 4 months ago. I still can't believe that both of my maternal grandparents are gone. It is the end of an era in our family, especially because I have lived a few blocks away from them my whole life. It just boggles the mind.

Last night I went through files of digital pictures and old photo albums and gathered up and scanned pictures for the DVD. I also chose 2 songs, La Feria de las Flores and Mamma, both sung by Placido Domingo, my grandma's favorite singer.

This morning I was trying to put all the pictures in the order I thought they should be in and they would not stay where I wanted them. I remembered that this new laptop has a Windows Movie Maker--this is what we call "baptism by fire, I've never done this before--and after a lot of trial and error and 5 hours later, I ended up doing the DVD myself.

We got to babysit my nephew for about 1 hour and took him on a quick errand to the funeral home and then back to my brother. Then my mom, aunts, uncle and his girlfriend, and I had dinner--actually breakfast--at IHOP. We were all exhausted.

My mom and 2 aunts came back to my house to see the DVD. It happily got their approval. Now we're switching into "plan the program" mode. The next couple of days will be devoted to that and printing them, deciding on the food for the gathering, etc. I'm still trying to decide if I want to sing something during the evening service. It is one thing to plan and practice in your own home, but something entirely different when you're actually there in the emotional moment.

Seriously, I've had my fill of funeral homes and cemeteries for the next several decades. My family had better stay really healthy for quite a while. In 2.5 years I've lost my dad, my sweetheart, my grandpa, and my grandma. I try not to think about it too much, but that is a lot.

Tomorrow we continue on and all of us are going to try and have a peaceful, relaxing night in our respective ways. I'll be driving out to see my girl cousins. One is flying in from North Carolina. We're going to do a ladies' night out to dinner. We need that.