June 13 - “At the kids’ table”

Chris went for her walk. Not me. I stayed in my chair and nursed a sore neck. Well, more like one or two levels above a simple crick in the neck. Not sure where that came from. Heating pad on the neck sure felt good, though. I fell asleep. 

We did have to leave the house around ten to go to another funeral. This one was to honor my Aunt Betty. She was in her 90’s and had lived a long and fruitful life, for sure. She had four sons and a daughter still living, along with grandkids and us nephews and nieces. 

Aunt Betty and my cousin Tammy were our favorite Tuesday lunch at Luby’s partners for a long time. Well, up until Luby’s closed and became some Chinese food buffet place. I’ll always miss that Luby’s. Besides the great companionship of my cousin and aunt, that Galveston Luby’s was the home of the infamous salad lady. She always asked, in her terse way, “Salad?” If you refused, or even if you didn’t, her next words were invariably, “A’ight.”

The funeral was at St. Peter’s Catholic Church on Broadway. It’s a massive, God church, meaning the architecture makes you look up when you walk in. There are some gorgeous stained glass windows all around the sanctuary as well. 

After the funeral we headed to the cemetery for the interment. All went well until the hydraulic lift that was carrying the casket to its final resting place in a mausoleum site about three levels off the ground stopped and began to beep. The workers lowered the casket a few feet and tried again. Same result. Stop. Beep, beep, beep. They tried lowering all the way to the ground and re-leveling. Nope. They finally decided to get it as high as they could, then get all four of the workers to lug it up by hand. There was a near-drop experience by the guy on one end, but they finally managed to get it in place. One of the family members remarked that apparently Aunt Betty’s wasn’t quite ready to go just yet. Great lady, she was. She will be missed. 

After all was said and done we went to their house for some lunch. Carraba’s lasagna. Good stuff. We enjoyed talking and sitting at the kids’ table. “Someone” may or may not have sent a tiny portion of paper napkin  flying through space in the general direction of the “adult table.”  Fortunately, the one it hit happened to have recently completed her first year as a schoolteacher. She purposefully moved her chair around so she could keep an eye on the happenings behind her. Being totally innocent of any prior infractions, I saw that as an obvious invitation to play catch, so I tossed her my napkin that just happened to be rolled into a ball already. And being the awesome teacher that she is, she threw it right back. She’ll do just fine in her profession. 

1 Corinthians‬ ‭13‬:‭4‬ says, Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

Father, thank you for Aunt Betty and her life of dedication to you and to her kids. Amen.