MEMORIAL - PART 1

20 June 2022

My mother's memorial was so ... complicated ... that it's going to take two entries to cover it.  This is part 1.

When I wrote my entry, "Making God Laugh" I talked about how Marta testing positive for COVID was such a big deal and how we had to change all sorts of things about who was going to stay where and how we were going to get together after the memorial and all that sort of thing.  it seemed like a big deal.  But with lots of phone calls and  texts we finally got it all sorted out.  The sad thing was that Tom and the girls would not be staying with us, but would stay with Walt's brother, so we would only see them at the memorial.

Jeri's friend Jessica works at a place where you can go and pick your own flowers and so  the two of us drove out there and Jeri got a lovely bouquet for the memorial.

Then she and I met Phil for lunch in Davis.

All afternoon Ned was taking care of things for the memorial.  I'll tell you, I hope that somehow my mother is aware of how much her grandkids did to make this a perfect memorial for her.

In the afternoon, Jeri played the song she had written for her grandmother, accompanying herself on the guitar, which she has been learning.

It's a beautiful song remembering all of the special things that Jeri and my mother shared.  Brought me to tears.

Jeri went to the store to get food that we could bring for the snacks after the memorial.

Ned did pretty much everything.  Packed up all the equipment we'd need (especially so he could show his slide show), boiled eggs for me to stuff, made picture cards to hand out to people at the memorial and printed an enlarged photo that we can put on display. 

It just amazed me with how many things he thought about that would make the memorial special, things I never would have thought of.

In the middle of all of this, he's also taking care of Marta, who is in isolation in their bedroom.

I was so incredibly impressed with how much Ned did and so sad that Marta would miss the memorial, but feeling much better about how things were going to go.

In the evening, I made stuffed eggs.  We decided we were going to serve things that were associated with my mother -- stuffed eggs, Hershey's kisses, and nuts, and fill in with things like a cheese plate and clam dip.

 

By the end of the evening, Ned had everything packed and ready to load into the car in the morning and we all went to bed.

We have been testing for COVID every day so in the morning Ned did tests on himself, Walt and me...and Walt tested positive.

Ned said he would have to stay home and get Walt to Kaiser and we had to figure out how we were all going to get down to the memorial.