Grandma's Services

For the California family or anyone who wasn't able to attend Grandma Billie's services this weekend.......

(Note to reader: Sorry for the non-scanned photos-I had to take pictures of everything in order to post them to the blog. Stacy wants a scanner for Christmas).

It was a beautiful day on Saturday. It somehow worked out that nobody had to work on Saturday so all of grandma's kids, kids-in-law, grandchildren and spouses were there. Even most of the great-grandchildren were there. The family met at the funeral home at 9:00 to have some alone time and to close the casket. Friends were welcome from10-11 and the service started at 11. The room was full and they even had to break out extra chairs.

Observations from Grandma's funeral:

• Granddaughters way out numbered the grandsons. Stacy, Felicia, Danielle, Malorie, Casuree and Lauren compared to Shawn and Jason. There's alot of estrogen in this family.


• All of Lyle's daughters have daughters. All of my mom's kids have sons. It's like a mini Grandma's great-grand-girls (Jade, Brooklyn, Hannah, Grace, Elli, Ryan, Kennadee, Karlee) vs. Grandma's great-grand-boy's (Lydon, Aaron, Brennon, Chaston). And then Danielle had Max and now none of that makes sense.


• Jill's friend, Ravonna, is heaven sent. I had offered to hold a luncheon at my house after the services. Ravonna caught wind of that idea and totally took charge. She made all of the arrangements for the luncheon and because of her we had a great meat and cheese tray, salads, chips, drinks and desserts waiting for us at my house when we left the cemetery. She took care of everything.


• Don Deardon (or Donny Dear as grandma called him) is also heaven sent. Whenever we called him, both with my mom and with grandma, he was right there without question, without hesitation. He gave them both blessings when we asked. He conducted at both of their funerals and he gave the perfect talk at grandma's funeral. She would have been thrilled with his talk. It was perfect.


• We have had way too many funerals in this family. Three in the last year and a half (Grandma Ruth, my mom and Grandma Billie). I now know way too much about funerals (which is saying alot for a girl who hasn't had to deal with this stuff before now). I think we have reached professional status when it comes to obituary writing, poster assembly, photo arranging, flower ordering......you name it!


• Jill is one tough cookie and she held up amazingly well. If anyone deserves a bucket full of Paxil and keg of beer to wash it down, it's Jill.


• My dad wore a khaki pants, a tie, and shoes with tassels and no one got a picture of it. DANG IT!


• All of the girls in this family are gorgeous! I believe now, more than ever, that they got all the family's pretty parts and pieces and I got all the left overs. (I totally stole this picture from Malorie's blog to prove my point).


• I can't look at Uncle Lyle too much because every now and then I look at him and he looks just like my mom and it freaks me out.
• Never hold a luncheon outside in the middle of the afternoon. It was way too hot and I sweated like a man.
• I forgot to get out my camera and didn't get any pictures from the day.


• It was good to have all the family together. I feel bad that we didn't get to spend more time catching up. I was suffering from a little case of anticipatory anxiety disorder which meant that I was so busy running around worrying about everything that I didn't relax and just hang out with the girls. I should have doubled up on the meds and taken advantage of everyone being in one place at one time. That might never, ever happen again.