Today was hard. I barely slept last night, and I blame the hotel for being too hot, the pillows for being ergonomically unfriendly, my cold for limiting my breathing, and my dreams/anxiety/sadness for conspiring against me. [censored] didn't sleep well either, so it wasn't just me. But I dragged myself out of bed around 6:45, and we were both ready and out the door (with a bit of hotel breakfast) around 8:20. We stopped at a convenience store to get me some cough drops just in case I had an episode in church, and then we went to the funeral.
It was really hard seeing Mark for the last time, and perhaps harder watching my dad and Aunt Becky seeing their brother for the last time, and Kathy seeing her husband for the last time, and Andrew seeing his dad for the last time. The family all got there early to have a few moments alone with his body before the service began, and then we congregated in a back room as people came into the church. The attendance was lower than it likely would have been because the weather was terrible - it snowed on top of the ice overnight, and the winds picked up to create whiteouts, and so travel was generally treacherous. So, the Kansas City cousins (my grandma's first cousins) didn't come up, and I'm sure they weren't the only ones who made the right call and played it safe.
But the service was really nice, all in all, although I obviously would have preferred not to have had to do it. The reading started off pretty bizarre - it was Matthew 25:14-30, the Parable of the Talents, which basically tells the story of three slaves whose master entrusts them with varying amounts of money; the two with the most money invest and double it, while the third buries it to keep it safe. The master rewards the first two and casts out the third with much wailing and gnashing of teeth (on the part of the slave, not the master, of course). I've never heard it read at a funeral, and at the end of it I was definitely having a 'wtf was that' moment (in my head, of course).
Then the pastor said that somewhere, Mark was probably laughing at the fact that the pastor had to figure out how to preach on this parable at a funeral (they chose it because it was marked in every Bible that Mark had), and that made it better. And the sermon was actually pretty good, especially as it wove in various aspects of Mark's life. Chuck Offenburger gave a beautiful eulogy (he's the columnist who wrote the blog entry earlier in the week), and Aunt Becky talked about her travels with Mark, and then Andrew (you know him as Drewbaby) talked about the things his dad had prioritized upon retirement with just the right mix of humor and honor, and it was all lovely and heartbreaking (and [censored] and I later agreed that we probably wouldn't be able to hold it together for a eulogy for our parents the way Drewbaby did for his dad).
The upshot of every story, every speech, every snapshot over the last six days is that Mark lived a really good life, and touched more people in more ways than most people ever knew. And as horrible as it is right now, and as horrible as it will continue to be, there's some comfort in knowing that he invested his life so well.
After the funeral, the family went to the gravesite - which was blessedly brief, since the snow was scouring the site and it was too cold to be outside for more than a few minutes. And then the funeral was over, and this chapter is closed.
There was lunch at the church after, and then my parents and Aunt B / Uncle B went home, while [censored] and I went to Kathy and Drewbaby's house. We hung out with them and with Drew's other cousin (his only cousin on his mom's side) for a couple of hours, and it was nice to have some quiet time with them. Then, [censored] and I left in separate cars, and I survived the two-hour drive south through all the blowing snow (which luckily cleared up south of Des Moines, although the wind was still annoying).
I spent the rest of the night eating takeout pizza (Casey's now has gluten free pizza crust, which is a wondrous development), watching some tv, talking to [censored] about [censored] (his favorite topic), and sending a couple of quick work emails to confirm/cancel a couple of meetings for tomorrow - I am only planning to take a couple of hours of meetings, but I want to dip back into work a little bit just to keep from being frightfully behind next week. And now it's time to go to bed and hopefully get more sleep than I did last night. Goodnight!
It was really hard seeing Mark for the last time, and perhaps harder watching my dad and Aunt Becky seeing their brother for the last time, and Kathy seeing her husband for the last time, and Andrew seeing his dad for the last time. The family all got there early to have a few moments alone with his body before the service began, and then we congregated in a back room as people came into the church. The attendance was lower than it likely would have been because the weather was terrible - it snowed on top of the ice overnight, and the winds picked up to create whiteouts, and so travel was generally treacherous. So, the Kansas City cousins (my grandma's first cousins) didn't come up, and I'm sure they weren't the only ones who made the right call and played it safe.
But the service was really nice, all in all, although I obviously would have preferred not to have had to do it. The reading started off pretty bizarre - it was Matthew 25:14-30, the Parable of the Talents, which basically tells the story of three slaves whose master entrusts them with varying amounts of money; the two with the most money invest and double it, while the third buries it to keep it safe. The master rewards the first two and casts out the third with much wailing and gnashing of teeth (on the part of the slave, not the master, of course). I've never heard it read at a funeral, and at the end of it I was definitely having a 'wtf was that' moment (in my head, of course).
Then the pastor said that somewhere, Mark was probably laughing at the fact that the pastor had to figure out how to preach on this parable at a funeral (they chose it because it was marked in every Bible that Mark had), and that made it better. And the sermon was actually pretty good, especially as it wove in various aspects of Mark's life. Chuck Offenburger gave a beautiful eulogy (he's the columnist who wrote the blog entry earlier in the week), and Aunt Becky talked about her travels with Mark, and then Andrew (you know him as Drewbaby) talked about the things his dad had prioritized upon retirement with just the right mix of humor and honor, and it was all lovely and heartbreaking (and [censored] and I later agreed that we probably wouldn't be able to hold it together for a eulogy for our parents the way Drewbaby did for his dad).
The upshot of every story, every speech, every snapshot over the last six days is that Mark lived a really good life, and touched more people in more ways than most people ever knew. And as horrible as it is right now, and as horrible as it will continue to be, there's some comfort in knowing that he invested his life so well.
After the funeral, the family went to the gravesite - which was blessedly brief, since the snow was scouring the site and it was too cold to be outside for more than a few minutes. And then the funeral was over, and this chapter is closed.
There was lunch at the church after, and then my parents and Aunt B / Uncle B went home, while [censored] and I went to Kathy and Drewbaby's house. We hung out with them and with Drew's other cousin (his only cousin on his mom's side) for a couple of hours, and it was nice to have some quiet time with them. Then, [censored] and I left in separate cars, and I survived the two-hour drive south through all the blowing snow (which luckily cleared up south of Des Moines, although the wind was still annoying).
I spent the rest of the night eating takeout pizza (Casey's now has gluten free pizza crust, which is a wondrous development), watching some tv, talking to [censored] about [censored] (his favorite topic), and sending a couple of quick work emails to confirm/cancel a couple of meetings for tomorrow - I am only planning to take a couple of hours of meetings, but I want to dip back into work a little bit just to keep from being frightfully behind next week. And now it's time to go to bed and hopefully get more sleep than I did last night. Goodnight!
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