The memorial

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We got to the O’Connor’s Brother’s funeral home about 45 minutes before the service yesterday.
Kris, the director there who has been very, very helpful to us was waiting. I get the impression he is not used to folks as experienced at setting up shows as we are.
My wife had a plan, and we began to implement it as soon as we walked in. Cameras, recorders, fountains, fog bowls, printed material, speakers and the computer were all put in place very quickly.
“What can I do to help?” he asked me as I was setting up the altar in the front.
“Power strip and pitcher of water,” I said.
He came back a few minutes later with a very nice crystal pitcher of water and a power strip.
“Your second outlet here isn’t working,” I said. “Let me know if there is some switch I’m missing to get it to work. And, I’m sorry, I should have told you three prong outlet power strip.”
I handed him back the two prong he had and went back to wiring things.
When he brought me the other I was trying to hook up the speaker.
“I don’t have the right audio output cable,” I said to my wife.
“Here,” she said, dropping it off.
Kris looked around at what was now a bunch of folks setting things up.
“I’ll be out in the corridor directing people where to go,” he said to me.
“Great,” I said. “That will be very useful.”
I am in no way saying anything bad about him. Only that I think we were a bit more active then he is used to in immediate family.
We used the fountain we borrowed from brickhousewench to represent water. We had the flowers and the stones in the fountain for earth. We had a candle to represent fire. We used the fog bowl that gilden had given us many years ago to represent air. So, we had the elements there on the altar, and her urn on a pedestal behind them.
There were lots of people there I knew. Brad, my wife’s uncle, aunt and 2 out of 3 cousins. My mother, her sister and sister’s husband. morgan_lafaye
yebo & zosh plus a few of my wife’s friends. And, of course, julytooth was leading the service for us, which was very nice of her.
But, there were far more who I didn’t know at all. The room we were given was full when everyone got there to the point some folks were standing in the back.
They were still coming in after the start time. I made sure we didn’t start until my wife’s cousin got there as we were all going back to his house afterwards.
“Besides, it’s good to wait for the police,” julytooth said. That got a strange look from Kris until we explained he was a police officer in Grafton.
My wife let me run the video camera in the back. I was very happy to have been given something to do. Once the set up was done, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself so being given something to take care of made me feel much more useful.
The service went very well. julytooth did a very good job with it. (And I heard that from several other people after the service, so it isn’t just me that things so.) I thought her using something from the Simerillian instead of the bible very appropriate for Jean.
I didn’t feel up to reading the list I had made a few days ago to those people, so she read it for me.
My wife did get up and read her eulogy, which I think was an amazingly brave thing to do. I remember how difficult it was for me to speak at my father’s memorial service.
She did a very good job with it and did her mother proud.
Her uncle did also get up and say a few words, which was also very nice.
The service was not terribly long. Once over, we packed the stuff and headed out. We had it all packed up and were on the road by 5, so even starting late the whole thing was well under an hour. At some point in the packing I put my cameras in with something else. Hopefully I’ll figure out what before too long.
We went out to my wife’s cousin’s house in Grafton. It is just down the road from where my wife and her mother lived when I starting dating my wife in 1983.
No where near the whole crowd came back there. We had bought a full keg of beer, but I doubt more than ¼ of it was used. My wife’s cousin’s wife let me use her camera, so I still managed to get some pictures of it.
When my wife and I first went to Ireland in 1996, we brought her mother home a bottle of Potcheen Jean still had it, unopened, in her things. So, that was cracked open and a toast was given to Jean with it.
I had been very tempted to take some of it myself. And, I’m sure Jean would have laughed if I gave up 22 years of not drinking for a toast to her. But, I did stick to the diet soda for it.
The toast was simple: “To Jean, you will be missed.”
I think the time at my wife’s cousin’s was the real memorial to Jean. Family and friends having a few drinks, visiting with each other and remembering her.
Telling stories of the good and the bad, remembering and most of all missing her.