Monday at the Manor

[Harriet]

I can't CUOP but wanted to say,

lucylee, solution: have a second obit run in the initial paper that first didn't have all the names. The funeral home can arrange it and it will cost more than $100 but not so much that it isn't a value for what paper-space costs. Buy up 3 to 6 of those physical papers. Have the obits laminated in such a way that shows the paper's name. (Again, funeral home may have advice, paper's obit dept may have advice, but you can probably do it well yourself. There are examples on the net.) Give these as gifts to the prime family members who were omitted, and keep them as yours and your brother's keepsake copies as well for your own family history. In the future, when someone looks up your ddad's name or someone else who leads to him, both obits will be there. Any family-history buff will know to check both.

[Harmony]

Thinking of Lucylee. Harriet's suggestion is wonderful.
Kathryn, do you think you ate something bad? That's what it sounds like to me. I hope you are done with all that now.

This manor servant is tired today. Too much weekend.

I got that delinquent report done, always a long project to do correctly. I got deposits in the bank. Helped DH with truck repair and hunted a tool part which did not show up any of the hundreds of little plastic boxes I looked in.

Working on laundry again. Work clothes need hung up now.

Sent off an email, that is late too. Had to put a program back into computer that DH took out, my email wouldn't operate properly and I had a bugger of a time getting the program in, but did finally manage it. We are getting better with all this computer stuff, finally.

Nap was nice. I sat down with my book, closed my eyes instead of opening the book, woke up all confused what time it was!

Dinner is next.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Harmony I ate what dh ate, and it wasn't violent like stomach flu or food poisoning, it was just relieving me as if I had overate (which I had but not by much when you take the whole day into consideration.) I had pizza for dinner (and dh ate the other half) so I'm guessing the slight overeating combined with the a strange-to-me sauce and caused severe indigestion. The kind that makes you think 'heart attack' and this time the pain was intense enough that I seriously considered going to a hospital. But I woke up just a bit sore and have eaten better today and found nothing has bothered me. I'll take a pill before bed, just in case.

The concert was okay but paled compared to the worship which was amazing. The choir was bigger than the combined congregation of our two churches, they had a baby grand and full grand piano plus organ, brass and full percussion (timpani, chimes, drums). The pastor of music directed the congregation instead of the choir during the hymns and singing with a thousand other people is an awesome experience. Preaching was wonderful too. Brueggemann (the 80 year old preacher) talking about the prodigal son, said "None of his friends gave a shit about him" then turned to the pastor of the church and asked, "Can I say that here?" That got a great round of laughter.

Went for a walk around the downtown with the other two pastors from our area. Had a good time with them.

[lucylee]

* whew *
Well... all's well that (maybe) ends well.
Preacher read corrected version @ the funeral; local (weekly) paper -- which will come out Wednesday -- has been sent corrected copy; and we did call the original paper to ask for a corrected version tomorrow.
Plus, dsgrandmother & all three of her children & their spouses were present at the funeral & dsgm & the son/ddil whom I had spoken to earlier assured me that I should think no more about it; they understood, these things happen, it's okay -- they said. Might be "overkill" to do a reprint after the fact, but better that than causing hurt feelings. (Dmom was the one who insisted we call and ask for a correction, said she didn't care what they charged, that would be fine.)

The service was very nice. All three preachers spoke so well, sharing memories and offering much hope & comfort for all of us.
DS and dh sang. Oh my goodness -- thank you to dh, who was quite put on the spot!!! Dmom had asked last week when we were in Houston if he would sing a duet w/ds -- a Lester Flatt/Earl Scruggs song called "He Took Your Place." Well, dh tried to beg off, although they had done this song many, many times before, saying he just wanted ds to do the singing, he didn't want to be in the "spotlight."
Well... dmom typed up the order of the service herself about an hour before we were expected at the church, and she had ds listed for two songs there, at the church, plus the morbid tearjerker at the cemetery. And she asked ds/dh, "Y'all are going to do that song aren't you?"
Well, what could dh say? He said he couldn't turn her down, and they did a beautiful job, without even practicing. So many people came up to dh later to compliment him, saying they didn't even know he could sing, LOL!

And ds DID do the morbid tearjerker at the cemetery and I felt it was a bit awkward, but I couldn't see anyone's face except one of the preachers, and he kept his eyes downcast throughout the song.
The dove release WAS beautiful and dmom was sooo pleased. So that is all that matters.

We shook hands and greeted friends from about 11:30-2:15... and the funeral was over at 3:00. Then to the cemetery, back to the church, dinner/talk/load flowers... and we got home around 6:00, maybe 6:30. We only live about 5 minutes from the church btw. Long day. My feet hurt. My throat hurts.

My only regret -- aside from the snafu w/dsgm -- I really sort of wish we had not had a viewing time for the family even. But I definitely did not linger at the viewing time... ddad just didn't look anything like himself, and it was just not "right."
I shall concentrate on the youthful looking image of ddad w/good hair. So glad no one except our family saw him today.

dmom typed up the order of the service herself about an hour before we were expected at the church

Now can you believe THAT? We used funeral home that daunt/duncle recommended -- b/c dmom couldn't really settle on one. Either of the other two options might have done a better job, but who knows. We did go through the survivors w/the funeral home director that morning when we met, and daunt, duncle & other daunt, dmom, ds, and I were all there. No one mentioned dsgm. I typed it all up, adding education/work experience/etc. & took final copy to funeral home the next day... after dh/ds/dbro/dmom had "proofread" for me.
Funeral director did not go over order of service.
Preacher did not offer to meet with us @ funeral home (like OUR preacher did when dfil died) -- although that is partly dmom's fault b/c she had not contacted the main two preachers at the time, and the one who is an associate pastor at their church currently is just that, associate. Maybe he's not used to doing all this stuff. Maybe dmom didn't contact HIM, either! I know dmom has had a lot on her, and we have tried and tried to take a lot OFF her w/out just being pushy and taking over... and as she said this morning, "Dsgm just will have to understand that this whole thing has been thrown together so haphazardly and it was a completely unintentional oversight."
But whose fault was it that it was thrown together so haphazardly ???
* sheesh *

But inspite of all that, the Lord looked out for us and I think ddad would have been pleased and approved.

I hope dmom gets her "focus" back SOON b/c otherwise, she is going to drive me insane. I told dbro as we were in line to eat, and dmom and dmil90 were holding up the line, engrossed in conversation about "what is that, pork roast, baked ham... hmmm..." -- I told dbro, "Look. I told you you were leaving me with two of them. You MUST visit OFTEN."

[lucylee]

Talking about "preceded in death by" -- I still left out daunt's late husband, whom I practically worshipped, who died six years ago, and y'all may remember. I posted all night while we waited for phone call...
BUT -- no one in daunt's family has mentioned this at all, including daunt herself when I called and said, "Guess what I did wrong. The obituary. Who did I leave out." That gave HER the perfect opportunity to say, "Oh -- Jim's name wasn't in there but that's okay..." right? So I never corrected re: him in the midst of all this flurry of phone calls and e-mails. I figured correcting would just call attention to it.

Dcousin ("Jim"'s daughter) did say she noticed the omission of dsgm/et all.
* sigh *
Daunt said, "WHY in the WORLD didn't you tell somebody???"
Dcousin said, "Well, it was already in the paper, so I figured it was too late."

Oh -- and one additional note -- no classic cars appeared in the procession. Just dbro/dmom in first white Tahoe, us in our nicely washed & waxed blue Tahoe. Ddad would have been so proud of my $85 wash/wax. Cleanest our car has been since we drove it off the lot.


(((Kathryn))) Was the "strange to you" sauce from the bar-b-que place I recommended? * sigh * Do I need to add you to my list of apology-recipients?