My Grandmas Funeral was held at 1:00pm on Saturday February 6th, 2010. Me along with my family left Friday February the 5th, 2010 from Madison Wisconsin. We arrived into Dallas/Fortworth Texas at 8:30pm. Earlier then we were scheduled. From there we Got a rental car and we drove about thirty minutes to a Subway by our hotel and we ate supper. After subway we drove to our hotel, La Quinta. I'v stayed in La Quinta hotels before and they were always nice so I figured this one would also be nice, but boy was I wrong. As we walked up the stairs to our room we noticed how dirty the carpets were, filled with leaves and dirt. The looked like they hadn't been cleaned in a couple years. Once we got to the second floor and we found our room we entered it thinking things would be different but we were wrong. The bathroom smelled horrible like mold as so did the blankets. It was late at night and we were all tired so we decided to deal with it. The next morning we woke up around 8:00 and got ready for the funeral. Then we drove about 1 hour and 30 minutes to Athens TX, which is where the funeral was held. We stopped in athens and ate at Applebees, which was amazing since I was starving because I hadn't eaten breakfast. After breakfast/lunch we headed over to the Funeral Home. When I first got there I was sad but happy to see so much family. I didn't want to go into the Funeral Home because I have never seen a deceased person in a coffin and I didn't know what to expect. After a couple minutes I went into the funeral home and from a distance I could see the top of my grandmas face. She was laying inside a dark brown/red coffin. It had flowers all around it and pictures of her. After a couple minutes of talking to people I decided I was ready to go see her. As I got closer to the Coffin I just kept picturing my Grandma waking up and realizing this was all a mistake and she was ok... When I finally did make it to the coffin I couldn't recognize her, but there she was; Red lipstick, Dark pink/purple fingernail polish covering her nails, and her hands were crossed ever so softly across her stomach. On her finger was the ring that her children had purchased for her. It had a birthstone for each and every one of her 13 children. She looked so peaceful but her face looked nothing like her. It was hard for me to fight back the tears. There were well above 80 people there at the funeral. My uncle Jerold was in charge of talking and calling people up. My grandma's sister, Nannette, gave the Eulogy. A couple of my grandmas children got up there and talked about memories and stuff that was important to them. After everything was done at the Funeral home we all go into our cars and headed off to the Cemetery. She wanted to be buried next to her mom. I rode with my sister Ayline and her husband John. Along the way we visited and got caught up on whats been going on in our lives. Once we arrived to the dirt road to the cemetery the police man that was directing us blocked the highway off so nobody could cut through. This police officer was very respectful. As he was standing there in front of his car he had his hat held down over his chest. To me that was very respectful. Once we got to the funeral we put my grandma on the contraption that lowers her into the ground and a couple more people talked and said prayers. We finally were getting ready to leave and apparently out here in the US there are people who are hired to lower the casket and burry it. In mexico the family lowers the casket and they burry it. Any ways we found a couple shovels and we started to burry it. We were pretty much done when the Tractor showed up. Guess they came out for nothing. After we buried my grandma we went and took some pictures. I was very excited because I had never gotten to use my camera like this before and I took some very cool pictures. Once we were all done taking pictures we headed off to My great Uncle Steves house where we all ate some delicious Posole and had coffee with desserts. We were there till around 8:30 and I had a great time visiting family members whom I hadn't seen in a very long time. Some family members I hadn't seen in over 10 years. I took more pictures of everybody and everything and I was excited to get home and edit them. On the drive back to our hotel I was so tired that I passed out in the car. We got back to Mesquite, which is the town our hotel was in, and we ate at Denny's. I had some amazing Scrambled Eggs with Cheddar cheese and some really good and crunchy Hash brown's. Once dinner was over we made it back to our hotel, by now it's after 12 and we have to wake up at 3:30 to catch our flight back home. By the time I get to bed it was just past 12:30. My alarm clock goes off at exactly 3:30 in the morning, just like I set it. I got up and made sure I had all my stuff with me. I then proceeded to double and triple check, for I had a lot with me. After everybody was ready and we were all packed up we checked out and headed off to the airport. We dropped the rental off and took a bus to our terminal. There we checked in and proceeded to the Security Checkpoint. Some how the tickets got messed up when I purchased them and my mom's name had an extra A at the end of it so it was Veraa. The Security Personnel started to give us a hard time that it didnt match up with what was on her ID and he had to call his manager over to review it and double check, I was fuming by then. I know they are just doing their Job but seriously one letter? Any ways they let us go through and we made it over to our gate, where we had over an hour to spare. We arrived so early because the car rental people told us to arrive 2 hours before departure. Any ways in that time we found our gate and I proceeded to fall asleep on the miserable airport chairs. I was awoken by the loudspeaker saying that they were now boarding the plane. I dont remember anything from the flight. All I remember is finding my seat, and exiting the plane. That is because once I found my seat I was out, out cold. We arrived in Chicago IL where we had about a 1 hour layover. The flight from Chicago to Madison was no more than 40 minutes. It was a quick flight. We arrive into madison a little before 11:00am. We gathered the one suitcase we took and loaded it into the truck and made our way home. I was definitely excited to be home. To sleep in my own bed. Which I will be doing in a few minutes. Over all the trip was good. I keep picturing my grandma and the fun memories I had with her. It's still very hard to come to terms that she is gone.
This is My grandmas Casket.
This is the Temporary headstone Until they get a nice one.
Some of my Mom's brothers and Sisters.
It was a Beautiful Day out.
This is My Great Grandma Hanson's Grave
These are all 13 of my Grandmas children...
From left to right; Dorothea, Rina, Sandy, Fred, Jerold, Tom, Vera, Mitchell, Murion, Melvin, Linelle, Joseph & Last but not least Vicky.
2 comments:
Wow, what an experience.
It was that way when my Dad died a few years ago...sad to have to say goodbye, but oddly happy, too, as I also saw some relatives that I had not seen in recent memory.
You took some great pictures too, somehow you managed to get everyone to pose!
Sorry for your Loss.
And thank you, It was not easy getting them to all look. lol
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