Three Beautiful Things 10/06/17: Celebration of Mom's Life, Party at Inland Lounge, I Was Spent

1.  At the end of the Celebration of Life that Carol, Christy, and I planned and that we, along with the Deke, Zoe, Cosette, Molly, and Paul carried out, Christy, Carol, and I greeted each person as they left the church. Each person expressed gratitude for a service they all thought did our mother proud and one they told us she would have been proud of.

I agree.

Our family and friends entered the church as a wonderful playlist of music that Christy selected and uploaded to her i-Pod played.  Zoe, Cosette, and Molly touchingly sang a favorite song of Mom's, "Inscription of Hope"; Christy delivered, with strength and clarity, a moving tribute she wrote, built around the Robert Louis Stevenson poem, "Land of Counterpane". Her tribute honored Mom's caring nature as our mother. The Deke played Paul's guitar and beautifully sang her own arrangement of "Lord of the Dance/Simple Gifts", another favorite of Mom's.  I gave the eulogy.

Paul and Carol then joined together to stirringly sing "In the Garden" combined with "Church in the Wildwood".  Carol introduced their singing of these favorite hymns of Mom's by tearfully telling us about singing hymns with Mom outside at the nursing home and how she and Paul sang to her during the evening of August 16th until about 10:00 p.m., only to learn shortly after they left her that Mom had died.

The service closed with a slide show tribute to Mom and her long life and people filed out of the church, accompanied by the playlist music they'd heard coming in.

Christy's tribute to Mom is here.  My eulogy is here.

2.  Many people drove over the Carol and Paul's house after the service to raise a toast to Mom and to have some time to yak.

My friends from high school were out in force -- over a dozen attended the service and the reception and our 1969-71 basketball coach, Larry Curry, was also there.

At the reception, I suggested we all go to the Inland Lounge when it opened -- but Byrdman declared that that was too long to wait and so he got a hold of Cas to see if Cas would open his bar early.

He would.

He did.

So for a happy bunch of us who graduated from Kellogg High School, along with our spouses and other family members, the party moved to the Inland Lounge and the spirits, both out of the bottle and from our hearts, flowed freely.

And I got some gifts. Cas had a bag of books for me to read and Don Knott gave me a couple of premium bottles of beer and a Heidelberg beer cap, in honor of my dad.

People who hadn't attended the service streamed in all afternoon and I saw many, many long time friends.

This was one of the happiest afternoons of my life.

3.  I returned later in the afternoon to Carol and Paul's house for a family dinner. I was spent, in a good way. I ate some food, did some socializing, but the Deke, Patrick, and I left this party a little early.  As is often the case with me, I was ready hit the sack earlier than others. I let the many joys and reunions of this day wash over me as my head hit the pillow and I went right to sleep.