Post Funeral

After the funeral we went back to my parents, changed and hung out. It was a little strange having all of these black Cadillac Sedans from the funeral home caravaning through the neighborhood and dropping us off at my Dad's house.

We were all looking forward to giving Sherry a gift that we'd bought as a family for Sherry. In my Mom's last days, we asked her what her favorite "Sherry memory" was. Even though there are a million, my Mom's favorite, and one of our families favorite was when Sherry was picking up a National Speaker for an event at the Lansing airport to head to my parent's house in Okemos. She called my Mom from Grand Rapids, an hour in the opposite direction. Sherry has zero sense of direction and frequently calls the family for directions to places she's been a million times. We love her for this. It's part of what makes Sherry, Sherry.

My Dad started things off saying in a pretty serious way, "Sherry, the phone calls for directions just have to stop." Pause. We presented her with a Garmin Car GPS system. We hooked it up for her and took her for a ride, showing her how it works. Sherry was most impressed that it didn't shame her for making a wrong term, instead just saying "re-calculating". She loved it and we were all excited for her. This will give her back hours in the day from getting lost and hundreds of dollars in gas.

Update: I talked to Sherry today and she was raving about how it worked for her. She told me how she used it to get to Subway, but when she left, it kept routing her back to Subway. She said it only took five minutes for her to figure out that's what it was doing. When I set it up with the address to my Dad's house, I must have programmed it for their neighbors. My parents in on the right, there house is on the left. Jon told Sherry how proud he was that she didn't turn into their house, but went to the right place, even though the GPS told her differently.

We headed over to Cathie's parents to pick up the kids. One of their neighbors had seen Cathie's family getting out of the car in black and proceeded to bring a gigantic chicken dinner for everyone. Again, people's kindness and generosity just blow me away.

Looking back on the past week with my family, I would count it as one of the saddest, but one of the best weeks in my life. I had a chance to spend such an intense with my whole family non-stop. For some people, that would be considered hell. For me, it was fantastic. We laughed together, cried together and told stories together. We never fought, never argued. We consoled each other, shared tough times and loved each other in a way I'll never forget.