Funeral @ eleven.

 The great thing about growing up in a small community is that you either  know the person you meet on the street or you are related to them. The bad thing about growing up in a small community is that every person you meet is either someone you know or  you are related to them.

 I find lately it is becoming difficult because the generation of people my parents age and older are all dying off, leading to a constant string of wakes and funerals. Unfortunately I don't feel that I have the time or desire to attend all of them. The families, generally hold off the funerals now until Saturday, when most people can make it. Funeral Saturday at eleven is the message that gets passed around.

This creates a dilemma I feel because I only have Saturday and Sunday to do everything chores wise and social life wise. If there is a funeral at eleven Saturday, then the day is gone pretty much because buy the time the mass has ended and people gathered for sandwiches afterwards, it's almost four o'clock. I'm not spending my weekends at funerals. I have enough close relatives and friends that I am going to have to ignore the third and fourth cousins, plus long time acquaintances etc, I will feel awful but I have no choice. Plus I get tired of observing death, life is so precious we should be concentrating on living.

 This week an older distant cousin of mine died, she was a good friend of my parents. Don't get me wrong, I liked this woman, she was a really kind and sweet lady. However she had no husband, no children, only a few elderly brothers and sisters are all that she had left. There's going to be nobody really there to pay my respects to.

One of the reasons I am not going, I don't want funeral overload, it just seems that every week this spring there is a funeral, that can bring a person down. Sorry everyone, funeral at eleven but I can't make it.