My Aunt Alice

It was only about 2 weeks ago that I posted about our family reunion to show my Aunt Alice how much we all love her.



Eight days after that reunion she passed away. I don't think anyone expected her to go so quickly. Her Daughter described her death as a "beautiful death, if death can be beautiful". She was surrounded by her family and lots of love. Her Funeral was today, so again my Mom flew into town and my Sister drove down with her whole family.

It was a large very traditional Catholic church funeral mass. My kids had tons of questions about what was going on and unfortunately I could only answer a few of them. At the church my girls kept looking at me like "why are you crying?". At one point Lucy took a Kleenex out of my purse and was dabbing under her eyes. She was not crying at all but just thought that was the thing to do since I kept doing it.

At the graveside although I had drilled my girls not to stand on grave markers, Lucy did. I love this photo of her checking out this marker, it is actually where Aunt Alice's parents are laid to rest.



Afterwards they had a beautiful lunch served in the same backyard that we stood two weeks ago as Alice passed out bags of her jewelry to all the women and girls in the family. At the time it felt so sad and awkward but today as I saw all the granddaughters wearing her necklaces and pins ect. It felt just right and I know that's how Alice would have wanted it.


Again we took a photo of all the grandkids, this time without Alice. After everyone snapped a bunch of photos we told them to do whatever they wanted, this was my favorite photo of them all.

I know that we should celebrate the person's life and I know that she is happier now and this was a blessing because she was so sick, but I am still terribly sad and know (from loosing my own Father) how hard it is going to be for her daughters and her grandkids.