His first funeral

Jory’s first funeral was his great uncle’s/great great uncle’s funeral. He was seven-months-old when I decided at the eleventh hour that he and I should go to my grandfather’s last remaining sibling/my grandma’s last remaining uncle’s funeral. (My grandma and her aunt married two brothers.)

It was his first plane ride and he did well, then we landed in that humid, hotter than a banjee heat of Jacksonville. I realize now how gracious God was because there is nothing I hate more than people touching me when I’m hot. It was hot there and humid, yet I don’t have any memories of trying to carry him in his car seat every place we went.. He did great at the service and at the gravesite.

The only thing that stood out in my mind was my Aunt Sister, my grandma’s sister, came up to me and my mom at the cemetery as we walked to the gravesite.

Holding my adorable baby boy, she commented on how beautiful he was. He totally was and is. And how he looked like Penny Pop. My mom and I looked at each other and smiled. I nodded my head in thanks. Penny Pop was what everyone called my grandma’s dad. We’re all at the very least twentieth cousins so technically Jory could resemble Penny Pop in some fashion, though from the pictures I’ve seen Penny Pop looks like a brown skinned Indian to me with long dark hair, but that’s just me. She would know better, it was her father after all.

His second funeral was a sad one. He flew like a champ again, but this time to Louisiana to his Uncle Leonard’s funeral. The uncle who had only seen him in pictures, heard about him via stories Mona would tell him, was dead before the age of 40. Car vs. motorcycle and his motorcycling uncle lost.

I’ll admit it at the funeral home, I thought about putting him in the coffin next to Leonard so I could at least get one picture of them together. Other than being devoid of facial hair, which I had never seen Leonard without, Leonard looked the same, looked like he was sleeping. My mother thought that hadn’t set his neck right and it looked off in the coffin, I didn’t see that I don’t think I could get over the clean shaven face. But my mom took Jory from my arms when I went to view Leonard’s body, so I guess I’ll never know if I really would have put him down next to Leonard. Cropped correctly no one would have ever known.

I guess this wasn’t really his second funeral because my mom didn’t go to the funeral, I think it was too much for her, so she stayed at Mona’s with Jory and a sick Austin, who I remember praying didn’t infect my healthy baby.