On the road again soon

(Mom with Emma.  December 2006)

M, our oldest son, and I will be leaving tonight to go to New Jersey.  The viewing (do they still call them that?) is on Sunday evening.  The funeral is on Monday.  Mom’s obituary is in today’s paper.  It’s nicely done but seems so short for a life of 72 years.  But then, you can’t include everything, can you?  That would make it a book rather than an obit.  It must be difficult to whittle down a life — a very full life — to a few sentences.

Mom is “survived by her beloved husband of over 54 years, five children, eighteen grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.”  (I left out the names to protect our privacy.)  She was a certified EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) and Past Captain of a local EMS squad (again, name left out for privacy reasons).  There’s more but you get the general idea.

Mom was a lot of different things to a lot of different people.  If the visitors to her hospice room are any indication, there will be a plenty of people at the viewing and the funeral.  She touched many lives in a variety of positive ways.

(Mom with Maddy and Emma — two of her great-grandchildren — June 2009.)

I’d better get back to packing.  It will be good to be with the whole family again.  Not that I haven’t had plenty of wonderful support here in the Bogs but… it’ll be good to be with my brothers, my sister, and my father.