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Priests' confessions

Published Friday, January 25, 2008 10:23 AM

By Ellen Priest
Berkeley Independent

My aunt passed away December 24th in Maine. I was unable to attend the funeral but was talking to my sister the day before, who was accompanying my dad to Maine. She told me that another aunt, my Aunt Wina, said the visitation would be at the funeral home that she and I had "hiked to" for my uncle's funeral in the late 1990s.

Those years ago, when my uncle passed away unexpectedly while visiting with my family in Connecticut, the family had to deal with transporting the body back to Maine for the funeral.

In Maine, the visitation, or wake, is held in two sessions. One in the afternoon, allowing elderly people to attend who don't like to drive at night in the dark; and one in the evening for those who work. During the two hours between the two, our family went back to the house to eat and rest. My sister and I took on clean up duty, doing the dishes.

When we finished, we left the house, locked the door, and turned around to find - no one there. I said to her, "Where's Dad?" She said, he must be in the car waiting. I said that I didn't see any cars on the street that looked familiar. She said that he wouldn't have left us. But to our dismay, not only he, but everyone had left us.

Here we were, in an unfamiliar town, before the days of cell phones, stranded.

We couldn't even remember the name of the funeral home.

I told her that it wasn't that far away and we could surely walk.

So, here we were, two ladies, clad in our black funeral dresses, in heels, in ten-degree weather, with snow flurries coming down, walking in the dark, trying to find the funeral home.

Along the way, we would laugh uncontrollably at how ridiculous the situation was. When we would stop, one of us would start giggling again, and off we both would go. I told her I'd worry about being mugged but the way we were laughing any potential mugger would think we were crazy and leave us alone.

The funeral home turned out to be further than we thought - probably about a mile - but we finally arrived.

Not wanting to appear disrespectful, we tried to compose ourselves before entering. We were about a half hour late for the visitation.

I approached my dad and asked him if he had been missing anything. He said no, he didn't think so. I said, maybe two of his three daughters? He said he wondered where we had gone. My mom had asked him when they got in the car and he was quite annoyed to tell her we had ridden with someone else and hadn't even bothered to tell him.

Not only that, when anyone asked where we were, he said we must be in the bathroom together! Now I know women are known to travel in packs to the ladies room, but for a half hour? At a funeral home?

He felt really bad about leaving us. But it gave us a much-needed laugh at a stressful time.

The Lord has a way of doing that, knowing just what we need when we need it. My Uncle Ed had a wonderful sense of humor. He would not have been offended that we were laughing at his wake. In fact, he would have joined right in. I wouldn't have been surprised to know he had set it all up, as a matter of fact.

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