Saying Goodbye

On Saturday we had the funeral for my father. We attended the viewing first, along with my brothers, my mom, her sister, brother-in-law and niece. I'll be honest I'm not a fan of open caskets regardless of how good the person looks. Dead bodies just make me uncomfortable and it's not the last vision I like to have of that person. I hadn't seen my father in probably six years so seeing him lying there was definitely strange and a bit uncomfortable but I went in to pay my respects.

After the viewing we rode behind the hearse to the cemetary for the burial. It was cold, gray and damp outside and seemed very fitting for the occasion. We met up with my dad's brother and his wife (they chose to skip the viewing) as well as some of my dad's extended family members most of whom I had never met or met when I was just a baby. There was probably about 15-20 people. It was small but nice. The Pastor gave a nice little sermon and my oldest brother who had planned the whole thing gave a really touching speech. I thought he did a great job especially given that we had so many ups and downs with our father. Even Kristian spoke briefly about how even though he never met my father he owed him so much for helping to create me and in turn our son. My mom told me that what Kristian said really touched her and she thought it was sweet that he spoke even though he had never even met my dad.

After the funeral we went to lunch to help celebrate my oldest brothers birthday which was Sunday. Not the best timing but since we were all together anyways we decided to make the best of the situation. After lunch at my family's favorite Chinese food restaurant we went back to my brother's condo to have some of the cake his girlfriend had made. He recently started dating a very nice girl named Melissa who has really been supportive through my father's hospital stay and now the funeral. This is certainly not an easy thing for a new couple to go through but she's really been there for my brother this whole time and I'm so grateful and I just hope she sticks around and perhaps become my sister-in-law one day because I really do like her.

I held myself together for most of the day and ironically the part of the day when I almost lost it was when my brother gave me the gift my father had bought for Hunter before he passed away. Since he didn't have my new address he had just sent it to my brother to give to me. There was a t.v. show about a cop on back in the 80's called Hunter and I actually remember watching it with my dad when I was little. Well when he found out his grandsons name he went out and bought the whole series on DVD for him to have and watch one day. The DVD is now in the nursery and one day when he's older we'll sit down and watch it together and I'll tell him about his grandfather and the good times I had with him.