You guessed it. I drank with my godfather last night, an entire six-pack to be exact, but more on that later.

Yesterday was my father’s visitation. My husband couldn’t get off work in time to be there when it started, so I had my middle son stay home (he wouldn’t have been out of school in time to get to the visitation on time and they were just doing a relay-for-life type fundraiser–except the money for walking/running goes to the PTA not the American Cancer Society or whatever) from school and the kids and I left as soon as my oldest got off the bus. There were already a few people there when we got there, before it was even supposed to start. I got the slideshow set up and started and visited with the people who were there. My mother’s family had put together a wonderful spread of snacks and drinks, which made my children happy for a time. I didn’t eat much because my stomach has been at least mildly upset since my father died and I didn’t want to be sick during the visitation.

My children just ran around for a bit, but fairly early on my eight-year-old sat down to watch the slideshow. He started sobbing and continued that for a couple hours. Even though we had talked about the fact that Grandpa would be dying and my husband sat down and cried with him the morning after my father died, I don’t think it seemed real to him until he sat there watching the slideshow in front of the casket. One of my father’s friends had brought handkerchiefs for the women of the family. Luckily, she made several because my eight-year-old went through most of them trying to dry all his tears. It was heartbreaking.

My mother and I both loved on him some, whenever the line of people coming through died down a bit. At one point, Nick Sirianni’s (Philadelphia Eagles head coach) father-in-law came through (his father founded our law firm). I pointed him out to my children who are huge NFL fans (as Chiefs fans we are familiar with the Eagles from the most recent Super Bowl). Naturally, as teenagers do, they acted completely underwhelmed, like they couldn’t care less. Then, when my husband showed up, the first thing my thirteen-year-old said to my husband was, “We saw Nick Sirianni’s father-in-law!” *insert eye roll* Apparently, we can’t let Mom think we’re excited about anything.

I am not a hugger, but the past two days have been a lot of hugging. My mother and I both kept it together through the visitation, even though a lot of people were crying. It was lovely to get to see the outpouring of support for my father. I think it may have been a bit awkward for my brother, but he was a good sport. My mother and I work together and worked with my father, so we know a lot of the same people. My brother did make it a point to let me know the two times someone showed up who he knew, but I did not know. They were my father’s camp-out buddies.

There were so many hugs. Some of them were LONG hugs. Not my favorite thing, but I tried to be appreciative of the intent. My father was a great man and I know we are not the only ones hit hard by his passing. Several attorneys I knew came through and several of the Judges we appear in front of also came through. My brother got to meet a lot of new people. There were several points where I just didn’t know what to say. I said, “Yeah, it sucks,” several times, but kept feeling like I needed to add, “but he’s in a better place” or “at least he isn’t sick anymore” or something because I’m the “glass-could-always-be-less-full” person.

I told several people my father fostered so many great relationships that we have had an incredible outpouring of support. One of the attorneys I know said, “He was a great man, but they’re also doing it because of who you are as a person. You deserve some credit too.” I hope that is true, but I don’t know if I’m that respectable of a person. Speaking of the outpouring of support, a friend called me yesterday morning and said she had hired a cleaning service to come clean our house to help me through all the difficulties of the moment. We just have to pick the day. I think my husband was kind of shocked by that gesture and immediately was like, “we need to get things picked up before we have anyone try to clean.” I tend to agree, but I am very touched by that gesture.

Lots of people came through the visitation and sat in the pews for a while to watch the slideshow (its 43 minutes long, so I’m not sure if anyone other than family sat through the whole thing) and many of them told me how much they enjoyed the slideshow. I had a few videos that I couldn’t get to play, but the slideshow of pictures went really well and I ended up being really happy with the way the songs turned out.

Several people had sent plants instead of flowers, so I now have four new plants I think. My mother took some of them, but she didn’t want all of them so her, I, and a couple other people took some. I told my husband I’m going to have to get a plant stand at Lowe’s tomorrow. I’ve never tried to grow anything besides aloe vera and a cactus, so we’ll see how this goes. A friend of mine from church said she still has plants from her parents’ funerals and she thinks they’re really special. So, she brought a plant to me at the funeral (more on the funeral in another post).

We were at the visitation for about four hours. My feet were hurting a bit by the end and my children were very much ready to leave. There were a lot of very sweet and some funny conversations throughout the course of the evening. My husband and I decided we were going to take the kids home and then walk to my godfather’s Airbnb down the road from our house.

My husband said he felt like a teenager, walking down the road in the dark, carrying our alcohol. We live on a dead-end road, which goes down a big hill then up a big hill. We live on the side of the downward hill. I thought my godfather’s Airbnb was at the bottom before the road goes up the big hill, so walking didn’t sound that bad. When we got to the bottom of the hill we realized the addresses were still in the 12s and we needed to get to the 17s. We still had a quarter mile to go up the big hill. So, we either had to walk back up the hill we just came down to get the car, or we had to keep walking up hill for a quarter-mile. We opted to just keep going. To say I was winded would be an understatement. We may have been acting like teenagers, walking in the dark at 9:00pm carrying our alcohol down the road, but, unlike teenagers, we are incredibly out-of-shape and get winded walking up hill.

Some other friends of my father’s, my brother, and a couple of my friends joined us there also. It was a really great visit. My husband was such a trooper. He usually doesn’t like hanging around people he doesn’t know very well, but he stuck it out for me. We were the last ones to leave around midnight. I don’t sleep great anymore anyway, so it doesn’t bother me to stay up late as much as it used to. I drank an entire six pack of Redd’s Apple Ale and still feel a bit dehydrated from that today, but I’m grateful I had the chance to visit with everyone. There was lots of laughter. My father would have loved it.   

I feel incredibly exhausted, but also am unsure whether I’ll be able to sleep when I go to lay down. We’ve been watching Shrinking on Apple TV. I enjoy it a lot. It makes me laugh out loud frequently, but there are also parts of it that had me crying today. I think I am just emotionally drained.