Boise

This past week I’ve been in Boise for my Aunt’s funeral. It’s been hard for various reasons. My sister, Rena, picked me up from the airport and took me to our cousin’s where we’d be staying. One by one we trickled in from various parts of the US. Rena had various errands to run, as she’s the executor of the estate & dying makes for a lot of work for those left behind.

I went with her for most of those errands while we caught up on each other’s lives, laughed & cried about things that have happened in our lives. Doing all this with her wasn’t easy. My Aunt’s been part of Boise for so long that it’s hard to imagine the city without her. One of our errands brought us to the funeral home, and I stepped in to see her. She looked exactly as if she’d been asleep. Walking into that room took some courage on my part. It’s one thing to intellectually know that someone’s gone, but to step in and see them is a different matter. One interesting thing, though, is that I felt her presence. Not in front of me but behind me, as though she was just behind my sister and I. In a way it was comforting. And as perverse as it sounds, I felt much better walking out of that room than I had walking into it.

The night before the funeral the family got together, had dinner, and talked. We caught up with each other’s lives, reminisced about my Aunt and her life. We talked about my great-uncle’s boats and his races, things that happened to them when they were younger. Things that happened to wives and husbands and children, the separations and joinings that took place in their lives. For me it was as though we were re-establishing ourselves as a family. We all walked out of that room a great deal closer to each other than when we walked in.

The day of the funeral we arranged logistics, went to the church and sat through the service before going to the cemetery. The priest that performed the service actually knew my aunt, which made the whole thing much more meaningful. She (yes, the priest was a woman) came close to tears many times while she spoke, and everyone that was there could relate as she mentioned how my aunt had taken her around the house and showed her all her treasures. It’s a tour that everyone who knew my aunt had been one more than once. I’ve never known anyone to tire of it.

I suppose I’m still coming to grips about this. At least I know that she’s not tired anymore, no longer in pain as she’d been (though she never made issue of it). She’s with all those loved ones that she’d outlived all these years. One of my cousins mentioned that had she died 10 years previously, there would have been at least another 100 people at the funeral. She’s with her family and at peace.

shayla