Cabin in the Sky................

Since I can never be still, even with being snowed in I have to find things to do.  My office/den is a wreck, papers everywhere.  Maybe that's what has me so behind on everything, the disorder.  I can't stand disorder and mess.  I've been places where someone says they've just cleaned and I can immediately spot where they missed. lbs.......
I decided that since I can't leave my home, I'll get order back to my office so I can get back on track with my business.  This abyss I find myself in makes me lack the focus I feel I always had and that bothers me.  Sorting through papers and things in the wee hours of the morning was not such a bright idea.  I know how sensitive I am to certain things and seeing those things coupled with the insomnia I suffer is not a good mix for my heart......
When you're the "informant" of someone who passes (hate that word), the funeral home  (at least the one I used) gives you a leather bag with all of the papers, resolutions, cards and extra obituaries in it.  My Mama already had one for her sister, now I have one for her so I have to look at two of these "things". My Aunt Tommie's and my Mama's.....
I see them all the time, I thought if I moved them from where they were (under my desk), I would feel a little better about having them.  I moved them into the garage, but my eyes still have contact with them every day, even though there is lots of other stuff in that garage.  In order to organize, I felt I should separate all of these papers I have for each of them into these bags to keep them together.  Mind you, I can not remember the last time I have opened them, much less looked inside.  I looked inside my Aunt Tommie's first.  My Mama was even more organized than I "think" I am.  Everything in it's place and little notes on things.....Then I look inside my Mama's......The first thing that jolts me, that didn't jolt me about the first one, is her name typed on a white strip right under the funeral home logo.  I've seen it everyday, but it seemed different to me for some reason..........
Then looking inside.  I see a folder with all of the resolutions, there were a lot of them.  Some that I know probably weren't read at the service because we would have been there forever.  Then the rough draft of the obituary blasted my vision.  Like a dagger straight to my eyes.....I see where I made notes for them to make sure they wrote everything correctly and put the pictures where they were supposed to go.  It made me think about those days.  The days leading up to the funeral service......
I really hated those days.  People dropping by unannounced, staying longer than I would like...TOUCHING ME!  I have always had an aversion to strangers or people other than family or close friends being in my personal space (sometimes I don't even want them that close).  Now, I had everyone coming in and hugging me, some even kissing my cheek (ugh).  My closest friends knew to stay away, they know how I am.  So they would just call or wait for me to call and I love them for that.
I really feel that funerals are more about other people than it is the family.  I can recall when my brother-in-law was killed having to tell my husband's friends to leave his mom's house because she was tired and it was 2am!! They were in the basement drinking (as people so often do during the days leading up to the funeral) and being loud and she didn't want to go to bed with a bunch of people in her house (understandable).   I felt the same way when everyone wanted to be at my house.  Bringing me food I didn't eat, telling me it would be alright (it still isn't), just sitting looking at me as I sat in the same spot on my couch in a daze still not believing what was happening.
At the funeral home, I remember telling them that everything would be done in one day.  I didn't want my children to have to go through that twice.  I think that is what a wake the previous day does.  I remember my when my uncle heard that there would be no all day visitation the day before.  He said that some people may not be able to make the funeral since it would be during the day.  I said, very monotone, because my voice was just very monotone at that time (I really didn't feel anything and it came out in my voice).  I just told him that I really didn't care who would or would not come.  I didn't want to see them anyway.  I told him that this day was for my children to lay their grandmother to rest.  I could care less who can make it or not.  As long as the four of us were there, everyone else....I mean EVERYONE ELSE, was irrelevant and not at all necessary.
The worst part about that whole day, as if it wasn't bad enough.  But the absolute worst part was at the gravesite.  That noise the crank that lowers the casket into the earth makes has got to be the most disturbing and heart wrenching sound I have ever heard in my life.  I hate it.  I knew I would hurt when I heard it because just over a year earlier, I hurt when I heard it lowering my aunt into the earth....I initially said I would leave before it happened, but I couldn't move, I couldn't leave her....I wish she hadn't left me......................

I thank and appreciate all who will read. Peace.