You know it's a good funeral when no one wants to leave.
Mom's funeral services on Friday were lovely. The service was beautiful, and my sister gave her a wonderful tribute spoken from the heart. The neighbors and church provided an amazing lunch at the pavillion by the lake.
Toward the end of lunch, my cousin's husband mentioned that he was having car trouble. The check engine and oil lights were on and bells were dinging. Since they had to drive back to Cincinnati that afternoon, we called a local garage to check out the car before hitting the road. The garage owner took the car for a test drive - no bells, no lights, nothing. He pronounced the car safe to drive.
Then, our Cincinnati family wanted to come back to our house to change clothes. When they'd gotten comfortable for their drive home, we said our good byes and they hopped in their cars. All the cars pulled safely out of the drive - except my cousin's husband. He cut the corner too sharply and landed in the ditch!
We pushed and we pulled, but the car wouldn't budge. We called AAA. And waited. And waited. Finally, we set up a card table and chairs in the drive, got out some leftover food from lunch, found a deck of cards, and made ourselves comfy. Needless to say, the tow truck driver thought we were a mighty silly sight! Despite his laughter, he got the car out of the ditch in a jiffy.
Because it was 4:30, it didn't make sense for them to get on the road and sit in Friday afternoon traffic. So we went to dinner.
You know this story isn't over, right?
At dinner as soon as our food was served - you guessed it - my cousin's husband knocked over a full glass of water! Poor guy. It just wasn't his day.
All in all, I'm glad everything happened the way it did. Instead of leaving at 2:00 they left at 7:00. Those extra hours gave us time to visit and catch up - time we wouldn't have had otherwise. Mom would have been pleased.
