Jay's Uncle Don died last weekend. Don was the last surviving sibling of Jay's mom, Pat. He was also the last of the aunts and uncles on either side of Jay's family. We are now the oldest generation. How weird is that? I mean, you know all your life that eventually your parents generation will be gone but you just don't expect it to happen so quickly.
Quickly? some might ask. Jay's oldest brother is over 70!
Yes, quickly! I would reply. Until you have seventy years under your belt you have no idea how fast they whip by.
It seems like yesterday that I was sitting in Pat and Frank's kitchen, having a beer and a laugh with Uncle Bill and Aunt Dorothy, telling stories of Uncle Don and Aunt Donna, holding Zack on my lap while Kelly held Lizzie on hers.
Zack is 6'2" now and Lizzie towers over Kelly. Everyone else in that memory is gone.
That just happened. Sure, it was twenty summers ago,
but it just happened.
So there was a funeral.
It was lovely. Fort Snelling in the morning is beautiful. The sky was clear the temperature was warm and the 21 gun salute for a man who landed at Normandy on the fifth day was moving.
Then, all the cousins in attendance went to the home of Don's daughter and son in law where we got to touch base and bring each other up to date on everything and every body. It was a lot of fun. When you have a large extended family spread out all over the country it's very easy to get caught up in your own thing and drift away from entire branches of the family, which is sad. Especially when it turns out you have relatives who are doing all kinds of interesting and fun things.
I got to see the wood working shop of one cousin who currently refinishing a set of old dining room chairs. They're beautiful and as a person who messes around with bix and sandpaper myself, I was drooling over the power tools and benches. How nice to be able to strip a piece while standing upright! I also saw the super cute "simple Santa" figures he makes for fun. I believe he could sell a lot of those. I don't like my description "super cute". Makes it sound like they have bunnies on them or something. What they are is clean, elegant, simple designs that make a statement about art, woodcraft and Christmas.
Then I discovered to my absolute delight that Jay has a second cousin who is a
published author!Her undergraduate degree is in folklore and archeology and she's working on an advanced degree in anthropology and folklore and she has used all this education to write historical fantasy fiction with as much authentic background and historical events as possible. This sounds like just my cup of tea, so I'm quite excited and have already ordered some of her books.
I also got up to speed on members of the clan from the other side of the river. It looks like there may be weddings and possible deployments in our future.
Life is beautiful.
