Tomorrow is the funeral. According to
Shirley's instructions it was to be a very small funeral, with the
short service at the cemetery, so the obituary said it would be
private. She must have had more friends than she knew because Gary
has been fielding calls for days from relatives who want to come to
the service, some from as far as Madison, Wisconsin and Winona,
Minnesota. Neighbors, too, want to pay their final respects.
Shirley was the last of her generation
and the holder of photographs going back generations. Some of the
people arriving tomorrow will want to come back to the farm house to
look at the memorabilia and make plans to have copies made. Neighbors will share their memories of an old woman who lived alone for so, so long.
This evening, Gary and his sister Kathe
had a small family gathering at a restaurant to discuss how to settle
the estate. Will the farm eventually be sold? What about the
farmhouse?
And what about Mama and Lily, the two
cats? A neighbor down the road volunteered to take them in. She
apparently has rescued other animals. Two sway backed old horses and
a llama have found a home in the farmyard there. I hope Lily and Mama
find happiness there, too. We'll keep in touch to make sure that is
so.
My plan is to go to the funeral then
return home to Seymour tomorrow afternoon, but I know how sad Gary
can become. If he needs me, I am willing to stay longer.
We talk about the future but the truth
is nothing much changes until the estate is probated and that could
take a year. In the meantime, we continue as always with a sturgeon
guard at the beginning of May and then camping for the summer. The calendar fills up with events and life goes on.
No comments:
Post a Comment