Home SICK

Funeral weekend is over.  We are home and I am SICK.  I think it's allergies but it feels like I have been hit by a semi truck.
The weekend went well, the funeral was really pretty and uplifting, rather than depressing. 
The whole weekend you could move from group to group of people and catch a funny story here, an innapropriate comment there, want to smack someone or hug them all at once.  I won't bore you with specifics but my favorite highlights were:
Watching something happen, then hearing what happened re-told in several different ways.  It was like watching a reality TV show.  We would have made a great one this weekend. In my Grandma's house there were at least 25-50 people at any give time over the 3 days. So in every room of the house a scene was being played out.
The food that people dropped off would be put away between the kitchen and basement refridgerators.   Every couple of hours someone would say they were hungry and then the food would come out.  No one would leave it there for long, so about 30 minutes later women would sweep in, clean up the food, pack it away only to take it back out in less than an hour later.  I do not want to see another slice of ham or turkey or pasta salad for a very long time!  While the food was taken out or put away, if you were the one taking it to the downstairs refridgerator, you would run into at least one person in the basement milling around just looking - you knew they were wondering what was in that box, or in that bag.  They were looking for anything they could find to either take, or bring upstairs to share.  And god forbid you were left in the basement alone or else you would feel as though you were doing something inappropriate!
At one point someone found all of the stored pictures.  As many people that could fit around the table did so and pictures were passed out and laughed or cried over.  I ended up with a few treausures of  my own.
My aunt who has lived with my Grandma her whole life, has a very nice almost brand new car.  She had been driving my Grandma's car more recently since my Grandma wasn't allowed to drive.  Also, because she had two flat tires on her own car. The story ended up that her car had those two flat tires for two years and this is why she was driving Grandma's car by the time it circulated through everyone.  Finally someone (cough, cough) said to a group of men, " hey while we are all here, let's get those tires fixed"  At one point there were about ten men standing around two tires in the garage discussing exactly how to take care of the problem.  Needless to say my Aunt now has two working vehicles.
At the church, waiting for the funeral to begin, if you looked up on a landing of the staircase you could see the younger kids sitting in a circle playing the very appropriate game of "Old Maid".
I loved every minute of the little whispered arguments that you would accidently walk into, or the "Wait until you hear this" comments whispered in your ear, or the personal moments you had with a family member you haven't seen in a long time.
During all of this we managed to go through gallons of alcohol, pounds of food, watched the very appropriate movie Kick Ass (thanks to my husband) the men went to the local and famous hot dog joint, and tried to go target shooting while the women went shopping of course.  We managed to even lock them out of the house while we were gone.

On the last night, while everyone was saying their goodbyes, my Grandma's dog, who went from looking so sad on the first night we got there, to looking almost normal, let out a yelp of pain and ran to hide in my Aunt's closet.  Still saying goodbyes,  my Aunt discreetly went to check it out with a few other "dog experts" in the family and they decided that something was definatley wrong with her.  At this point you could hear comments around the room of - "the dog is fine, wait until Tuesday and take it to the vet", "Oh no, it's Grandma's dog and she feels reponsible, how sad", to " oh my gosh, don't let anything bad happen to the dog while we are still here - hurry, let's go!"  My Aunt, after calling the vet, decided she needed to go to the Hospital amongst many naysayers, and I feeling bad, volunteereed to go with.  Now you know, I like animals and all, just not in a  huge hold them and hug them kind of way. My Aunt drove while Sassy the dog sat on my lap.  It was a long drive at 10:30pm at night, and I hoped it wasn't anything serious. Going to a vet hospital is just like going to a real hospital! (Who Knew?)  After Sassy was "triaged", we found out that she had one of the worst cornea lacerations they had seen.  About 30 minutes later we were on our way home, me with little cone -headed Sassy on my lap.  At this point we both just laughed, and I said to my Aunt.  Well, at least now you have a distraction to keep you busy after we all leave.  And I believe that is exactly what that was- specifcally orchestrated by my Grandmother from above. 
Now for me, it's back home, to unpack, and clean and think fondly back over the details of the weekend.  What was supposed to be a very sad event, was for sure in many ways, but during the saddest parts something funnywould inevitably happen. Like seeing actual Christmas decorations on two houses while driving in the funeral procession - that and seeing the look of joy on the faces of the men who were driving about getting to run the red lights.  Or during the saddest part of the funeral hearing someone's cell phone go off.  So thank you Grandma for giving me this unique family to be a part of and you will certainly be missed.