A family affair.

It is something everyone dreads. When you get that out-of-the-blue phone call that someone you love has died unexpectantly. That happened in our family memorial day weekend 2014. We were at the beach when my mother called to tell me that my cousin Colby Reese was tragically killed in a motorcycle accident, he was 31 years old. Truthfully it didn't even register. I went back to watching my kids play in the sand and tried to grapple with the reality of what that meant and really it just wasn't sinking in.

A few days later my mom called with the dreaded, "Are you coming up for the funeral?" I didn't want to go in a big way. No one wants to go to funerals but added to the fact I didn't want to go to Michigan also....I tried to weasel my way out of it in any way that I could. Turns out that I couldn't. Someone gifted me the flight, first class. So I went for three days for the funeral of my cousin Colby Scott Reese.

 I didn't know him this way. I really didn't know him in his adult years much at all. He was nine years younger than me and I moved away from Michigan seven years ago now, which is all a huge combination for not really knowing one another much at all.

However I did know him very well like this. He is winking front and center there when he was a little older than one year. For some reason my mom had ALL our family photo's laying around. My brother Jeff and I went through every single one and found pictures of Colby which we put on a poster board and brought to the funeral home.

We went there. That place. That dreaded place. I told Ella that funerals are parties for when people go to meet Jesus. Oh, they are but sometimes they are not all that joyful, especially when a 31 year old goes. It was profoundly sad.

I realized a few things during that trip home. I realized that funerals are family affairs. It is important that family is together to support each other. Families carries the memories of the past and grieve deepest the loss of a future together. It didn't matter so much that I didn't know him well these past few years. It matters now that I will never know him again. And I carry these memories of many holidays spent together. Baby sitting. I hold these memories in my heart.

My mom was overwhelmed with grief. I saw my aunt cry, something which I didn't think possible. My uncle looked crushed as he wandered around the funeral room and did rosary's at the casket. I reconnected with Colby's mom, my aunt Karen. She was divorced from my uncle years ago but when I saw her a flood of memories returned to me and I was beyond happy to have her back in my life again.

It is important to be there for the people who are living. In retrospect I was so happy I had went to this funeral. My family was on their best behavior.  Those pictures of my mom's were gone through by all us kids twice. We laughed, and reminisced deeply. It was the best of the worst of times.