Chapter 15: Mom’s Last Hurrah

September 5, 2025

Today was a real blur. 

I got ready on auto-pilot and only realized while getting into the car that I had put on full eye makeup.  Well, isn’t that going to look ridiculous in a few hours when tears have smeared it all over my face!  Oh well, can’t turn back to fix that now.

We had a bit of a neighbourhood convoy to the church.  My cousin and I in my car (with strict instructions for him to hang on to mom very carefully!); my husband, my mother-in-law, and the kids in his car with the flowers; and my neighbour and the harp in hers.  We arrived at the church at 10am for the 11am funeral…and people were already there!  That wasn’t part of the plan.  Oh well, we are just going to have to set up and do work around them, I guess…

15 minutes to go, I started getting frantic calls from relatives in India who couldn’t access the livestream.  Fortunately, my cousin helped out there – I wasn’t in the frame of mind to offer tech support.

For most of the time leading up to the start of the service, I did my best to hide the family in the parish hall so we wouldn’t have to talk to anyone coming in…but that’s where the bathrooms are, so that didn’t quite work out.  At least I was able to guide people back out quickly so no one would bother dad.  Neither of us were really in the mood.  When we walked out, I couldn’t believe how full the church was.  Wow.  I’m sure there are at least 350 people here!  We are definitely going to run out of food.

The music and the service was beautiful; everything really came together perfectly.  I felt like I had never been more present for a church service in my life…yet somehow completely out of my own body.  In my head I kept repeating, “I am at my mother’s funeral,” to try and make this all seem real, but it didn’t really work.  What a surreal experience.  I held it together pretty well until communion when I caught a glimpse of a friend I haven’t seen in a few years – she would have needed to make a nearly 5-hour drive to be here.  I didn’t know she was coming.  I was so touched by her being there, I broke down for a moment but then remembered I still had a eulogy to deliver.  I think I made it through that reasonably well..I guess I’ll have to watch the recording to see if that’s actually true. A family friend put together the slideshow that ended the formalities – it looked amazing.

We didn’t have a receiving line at the hall – Dad, my sister, and I tried to get around to everyone on our own time. Absolutely none of us would have had the strength (or patience) to make it through a line up of hundreds of “I’m so sorry-s.”  Bright side though – we are all blown away by how many people are here. 

The worst part was talking to some family friends who are even much older than mom and dad.  I kept thinking – you people aren’t supposed to be here.  I’m supposed to be at your funerals.  With mom.  Who should still be here.  Sigh.

Speaking of family friends, some of them really seemed to want to party.  At 2pm I finally told them they didn’t need to go home but they couldn’t stay at the hall. Our family was exhausted and we were itching to get out of there.

It was nice to have some family time in the afternoon at dad’s place and then have everyone over for dinner again.  We ordered Chinese food.  We told stories and even laughed a little bit. And it felt like a real weight came off.  We gave mom a beautiful send-off today.  I hope she enjoyed seeing it from wherever she is now – I hope we made her happy.

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