December 14 – “Pall Bearer”

We are heading to a funeral today.  Chris' mother's sister died a few days ago, and the service is at a church in Needville, Texas.  We went to the visitation last night, which was at a funeral home in Rosenberg, Texas.  The death was unexpected, so they had to do some scrambling to get all the arrangements done.  A grandson was on active military duty in Afghanistan, so they contacted him and he was able to make arrangements to get home on emergency leave.  Chris has a pretty tight-knit family group.  Lots of cousins.  And the last six months there have been four or five deaths in the family, so they have gotten together more in that six months than they have in years.  It's fun to watch them together.  It reminds me of that Olive Garden commercial on TV when the guy says their gathering feels just like they are back at the kids' table for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner.  Lots of remembering going on, which is very healthy.   While we there Chris found out that her aunt had made an unusual request.  Ordinarily, the way of the family has been that all the guy cousins act as pall bearers at the funeral service.  That's the way it was when Chris' Mom died.  But Aunt Hope wanted something different.  She said the guys always had to do the dirty work, so … since she had lost a lot of weight, she wanted the cousin girls to be her pall bearers.  Nice call, Aunt Hope.  Different is good.   But that meant Chris had to have a white shirt and black slacks.  That's the "required attire" in these family situations.  So on the way home we stopped at a JC Penney's and found her a very nice white shirt.  She already had the pants.  Now she's all set.  Needville, here we come.   2 Corinthians 9:15 says, "Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!"   Father, bring peace and comfort to this great family.  Amen.