A Quick Visit with Many People and a Funeral
I have had so many wonderful visits with so many friends and family this time home. It is hard to believe that it's time to return to Lithuania already. For one thing, a funeral provides an opportunity to reconnect with all the family in a short space of time. However, the intensity of the occasion makes for interactions that are sometimes bumpy and communications fraught with misunderstanding by people who are under stress and exhausted. Our family was no exception. It did not help, of course, that I arrived, after 3 days of non-stop planning, packing, and travel with final decisions on the music still to be made. But Jeanette, a close family friend sang "The Lord's Prayer" and "The Holy City" so powerfully and expressively, not to mention musically, that there was the sound of applause as she finished. My sisters and their husbands exhibited all grace and willingness to let me have a voice in what was going to happen despite their own exhaustion and the pre-planning they had already done. I have an amazing family in so many ways.
When I arrived, we had one main goal--getting the visitation and the service properly organized. It seemed that the biggest job would be the ordering and selection of pictures for a slide show. Thank goodness the family had decided ahead of time not to deal with the thousands of slides Papa had taken over the course of his life and work. I cannot decide whether it was a love of photography or a desire for documentation and historical record. Still, there were plenty of pictures and my brother-in-law and his daughter Shannon made a slide show after we had spent two separate times selecting pictures for scanning. It seemed to me to be a good combination of serious, funny, and personal combined with the background of a song called "Thank You."
We returned from the graveside for the traditional dinner at the church with family and friends. As is usually the case at these events, the food was delicious and plentiful. Then we all moved to my sister and brother-in-law's house, Kathleen and Greg's, where we continued to visit until it was time to leave. A cousin I had not seen in a very long time, the only Henderson family representative, took me to dinner in Grand Island on his way back to the Omaha airport. We had a wonderful visit as we'd attended the same university in our undergraduate days. It was a great close to a good day.
Hugs,
Geri
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