Quick as a Wink

I'm not taking the whole month I had allotted for this trip. I'm glad I made that month available, but my brother's family are trying to return to life as of Wednesday, and my presence is no longer needed.

I am keeping an open line to God during this whole trip and it's amazing, when you learn to listen. As it turns out, this Friday I will be in transit again, so there will again not be any Fiction Friday, but I'm hoping next week to resume a schedule.

This trip has been illuminating. My nephew was well-loved, and there were about 800 people at visitation, and a very crowded church for the funeral. A few things were cute and unifying:

The high school soccer team he'd just graduated out of all showed up wearing their jerseys. They all sat together, too. 

His pall bearers all wore aviator sunglasses, as he used to do. 

When I had packed for this trip, I had tossed two pink dress shirts into my suitcase, and thought I'd wear one to the funeral. The morning of the funeral, I was considering a darker colored shirt and - silly and insignificant a detail as a shirt might be - I said a quick prayer. I wore the pink. When I arrived, my brother asked, "Who told you about the pink thing?" What pink thing? Turns out pink was his favorite color. He felt that color described him. He was wearing his favorite pink bow-tie in the casket. The whole family was going to wear at least a touch of pink. And that was the only color of dress shirt I had brought! 

It's a weird detail, but I think they appreciated it.

I'm so glad I made the trip. Looking at him lying there, it was clear he was gone. The color was wrong, his freckles were covered and without his perpetual grin, his cheeks had fallen. It was important to see that, and recognize that his soul is no longer here.

Yesterday, my sister-in-law and niece took me to Walmart. In the hair-care aisle, SIL suddenly was overcome at the normalcy of it. Things are not normal anymore. The new normal will never be right. They are holding it together, but grief strikes in the most random of moments. For me too, and for each of us.

I have a sister with a son the same age. Our brother had to take her by the hand to look in the casket. I think this is harder on her than she's been letting on.

Quick as a wink, people were leaving town, and decisions are being made about flowers, and photos, and memorials. Tomorrow is the last day, graveside, and then I will head up to Chicago with some of our mutual friends. 

Here ends a life. A life well-lived, as short as it was.