Waking The Irish ©

It’s Saturday morning and I have funeral to go to.
Today is the day I have to actually talk to the SIL since her and I had it out seven months ago.
It might sound awkward to many and I know it was going to be for the SIL but it wasn’t to me.
My way of thinking operates on various levels.
I could go with never having to speak to my SIL without even a thought but at the same time I believe in family and respect, which in my point of view comes ahead of personal feelings.

Also, I got a complaint that in my previous post about his death that I had nothing good to say about him which is true.
The thing is I didn’t know him that well because he didn’t live here.
The only time I met him was when I help him move a refrigerator from his van to the SIL’s house.So going to this funeral and wake has now got one more purpose and that’s to learn a little more about this person and I can’t have people complaining now can I?

My parents and I got to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and upon entering I surveyed the group assemble and right away I started believing the story about St Patrick’s ridding Ireland of snakes, the two vipers, his EXs were not present for the service.

Armed with what I knew from his daughters and what I heard other say about him I have come to the conclusion that he was a generous man.
There wasn’t a friend he would say no to when they came asking for help.
When his kids were in need he was always there with his chequebook.
When he divorced his wife the first time he gave her everything so she wouldn’t need to go without and that included a huge house and even bigger bank account.
Armed with nothing but his two hands he went out and regained as much as he lost and met someone else to share his life with.
After a few years that fell apart, it was probably the 20-year age gap and she found someone else closer to her age.
Even then he gave her house paid for and money.
So you could see he wasn’t greedy.

I listened to his friends and family tell how he loved to make people laugh and always had a way to make people laugh.
It takes a special type of person to want to make people happy, it’s better than money in the bank where the interest is instantaneously rewarded on the faces of those people he made laugh with him.

They had this woman with a voice that could make Angels weep singing up in the balcony to the soft notes of the organ whispering with her voice.
The priest read passages from the book of Psalms and every break the Angel's voice would start up once more.
The eulogies painted a picture of a man who knew how to live and fought to live up until the end. He fought cancer for ten long years and up until the end he did it standing on his feet, not on his back.
It takes a strong soul to fight so hard and not just to lay down and give up when giving up would have been the simplest way to go, forgoing the pain and struggle but life burned deep into this man who left this world looking at war within his family and love in his heart for all of them.

Two hours before he died, nurses took out one of his Exs because she was beating him as he lay there because she didn’t get something she wanted.
He still left this world with a smile on his face, how much does that say about this man?

For the record I have not been to too many Irish funerals…….actually this was the first.
I have been to three Irish wakes, two I can’t remember but the bodies were right there propped up and I pretty sure one was drinking with us or I was drunk.
The priest filled this big goblet with wine then took communion near the end of the service, said a couple of prayers and then filled the goblet again and drank that down in one shot.
ONE, both times he downed it with one shot.
My mother leaned over to me and asked what he was drinking and I told her it was wine she then said the priest can really drink alot.
No kidding, this was his second funeral to.
Imagine if he had three or four to do he’d be pissed at the end of the day.

After the service I led my family to the receiving line and I could see the SIL was nervous but I just acted like what had happened seven months earlier never happened and treated her like I always did and I think that made her feel better.
She felt so relaxed after that she asked me for a favour outside of the church.

When everyone had given their respects we gathered outside of the church and talked for about thirty minutes.
We were to go to the wake but my father started bitching that he didn’t want to go but we told him he didn’t have a choice because we were going and that was the end of it.
I told my parents I was going to bring the car around and went back through the church and out the back to where the car was and brought it around to pick them up.
My mother got in the back and my father in the front and just as I started off my mother asked me what was in the back with the seatbelt wrapped around it.
I told her it was the SIL’s father, there wasn’t any more room in the jeep and besides its only a five passenger vehicle and there were five in there already.
My father freaked but I told him he was only jealous that there was another man in the back seat with the old lady, then I told him to put his seatbelt on like the dead guy.

The reception after was fun and festive.
His sister was there telling stories about when they were kids together with the other eight brothers and sisters.
We stayed for about three hours and I had to get my parents home, it was to hot today and they both have been tired with all the cleaning they have been doing for the past two weeks.

So that was my morning and afternoon, the evening is still unfolding, who knows what will happen.
I hope I have taken care of that complaint, only 117,236 to go, this may take a while.

I hope all of you are having a beautiful weekend and I would like to apologise for not answering my comments like I would normally do but I barely have enough time to keep up with your blogs.
Hopefully everything becomes normal again soon and I could enjoy your company as I have in the past.

Have a nice weekend.

Walker