quinn222

Thanks for all the kind words and virtual hugs, they were and are much appreciated. Today went pretty well all in all. Here's a semi-brief recap:

Managed for once to get the family on the road on time. I let my older (I don't know why I qualify this, all my siblings are older) brother drive. Guess what? My brother drives like a fucking lunatic! OMG.

We survived the drive and were greeted at the national cemetery by a polite young man with the thickest accent I have ever heard. My charming brother called it a 'redneck' accent. I have no idea. It was some variety of 'southern' in any case. This continued to be a source of some amusement as none of us could understand much of anything he said to us. He'd tell us what to do or where to go etc. and we'd all stand there looking at each other hoping someone caught the gist of it. We did figure out that we were to line our cars up in a certain spot and we'd follow the color guard and a military vehicle to the place where the service was going to be. We did that and I got out of the car and gave my dad's ashes to one of the army soldiers while my brother gave the flag to another one of them. I was kind of freaked out because I didn't know if my mother wanted to touch the box or whatever before I handed it over. I didn't know if she'd get another chance. We got all that sorted out and then the brief service started.

I left my bag in the car because, military funeral, national cemetery, I figured it was safe. I asked my mom for tissues since I left mine in the car. She gave me one and said, "I have plenty, I won't need them, I'm not going to cry." Right. I cry when they play taps for people I don't even know. Sure enough they get to that point and tears are running down my face and my mom starts crying. No idea what was going on with the rest of the family, they were behind us. My brother and I were flanking my mom and had our arms around her. I wasn't into full blown sobbing or anything but lots of tears and sniffles. Then the soldier comes over to my mother and knelt to present the flag to her and give her the 'thanks of a grateful nation' speech and then he stood and saluted her. Yeah, no help with the tears there. That was the end and we did get a last chance to touch the box. His resting place is really pretty and as my mother said in the car on the way back, he'd be happy. He always loved to be with the guys!

So then we went home and my brother managed not to kill us on the way home (though not for lack of trying).

Next up on my day was the tech coming to fix my laptop. He showed up 30 minutes late and the new motherboard he brought was broken in half. *cried* [okay, I didn't really cry but I wanted to.] The only fitting way to end this day was with many large fruity drinks of the alcoholic variety. Sadly my mother was terrified to get in the car with my brother driving again so I was the designated driver and thus comfort had to be found in a modest fruity drink and a really big piece of chocolate cake with dinner in between. Various ridiculous things went on the the restaurant which I will not bother going into but at one point my nephew (who was beside me) leaned over and said, "Do you feel like we're having an entirely different dining experience from everyone else at this table?" and I knew exactly what he meant!

So I am home now, totally stuffed, and my laptop is a really expensive paperweight. Oh and I forgot, I got an email while in the car on the way to the cemetery from work, there is a crisis and I need to go into the office for a few hours this weekend to get it sorted out. *headdesk*