Pretend Your Alive.

The funeral is over, her 94th birthday residing this Saturday.

I entered the funeral home and was taken aback at the sight of her open casket, her body laying there, eyes closed, directly ahead.

I hadn't given much thought to whether or not I wanted to look yet. I planned on seeing how I felt when I got there. However, this caught me off guard. After loitering in the hall for quite some time I finally decided to go in.

I went through the day on approximately 3 hours sleep, afterall, that's all you really need the night before a funeral. I spent most of the day with my grandfather, since my grandmother was busy with her sisters. We laughed, we smiled. It was really nice. An old family friend came and I was surprised, I had forgotten all about him. I jumped up and said hello and he, too, spent the day laughing and smiling with my grandfather and I. They know how to cheer me up.

I was given a cd of pictures that I just now opened to look at.
I was surprised at the pictures I don't remember being taken, and the lost ones that I do.
I shared a few.

"Yeey that I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I shall fear no evil; for you are with me; thy rod, and thy staff- they comfort me."
Psalms 23:4

Winter, 95.

Hahn.

Woke up this morning feeling completely unmotivated, turned off my alarm, and layed in bed for quite some time before falling back asleep. Walked around my apartment for a few hours, watching tv and talking to Jake off and on. My mother came home around twelve because she was able to take the next few days off.

Tore apart everything, frantically looking for that folded piece of orange paper, labeled "Hahn".
Thanksgiving, 2007.
We're at the nursing home, there are small tables arranged everywhere, set for the number of planned guests for that person. There is plastic silverware wrapped in colored paper napkins, with a paper turkey print out wrapped around it.
In the center of the table is a decorated card, with the last name of whomever you are visiting.
She didn't remember me, she wasn't doing well.
After dinner we got up to leave and I took the card off the table and put it in my purse.
I've been walking around with it for months in my make up bag.
Just days ago I had looked at it, and now, it's no longer there, and neither is she.
When I tell my mother this she replies, trying to make light of the matter, "How ironic! The cards gone, and so is she!"

The funeral is on Monday.