Decorative rifles and bible verses

Thursday, October 6, 2016

San Angelo, TX

It’s 8:50am Central Time and I am just now getting downstairs to check out the breakfast buffet at our hotel. To my surprise, it is delicious (parents always pick the best hotels!). I eat a plate full of bacon and eggs and pour a large cup of coffee. It turns out a little weak, but it’s okay, Mom is willing to stop at Starbucks.   

Our first stop is back at the funeral home. We are there to drop off some personal items to put in the casket. We also have to finalize the obituary, confirm the pallbearers, pick out stationary and pick out a casket. We are led into the casket show room and luckily my Mom knows exactly what she wants. It’s a blue marble casket and it’s very nice. We have a brief discussion about the color of the lining before we settle on white. This entire process is strangely transactional. I am grateful for the businesslike attitude though, I prefer to cry in solitude and, apparently, everyone else wants that too.

Next we are shown into another office to go over the final details for the service. James comes in and he is looking nervous as ever. First, he shows us the obituary. I immediately find a typo (this is not good for James’s nerves). We also view multiple possibilities for the stationary and decide to defer our decision until later in the day. There are a lot of options and we need to make sure that it looks good with our photograph. After dealing with a few more details concerning music and transportation, we wrap up our meeting.

Since we are officially across the street from my stepgrandmother’s apartment, we make a quick stop to say hi. She is doing well and is very happy to see us. We spend almost an hour looking at pictures of my cousins and getting the latest scoop on my aunt Rhonda. Vera, my stepgrandmother, will not be attending the funeral; her and Mema were never on good terms.

The next stop is the Southgate Church of Christ, this is Mema’s old church. We walk into the Minister’s office and sit down to wait for Minister Paul Shero. I notice two things immediately; this church is huge and Minister Paul has a rifle displayed on a gun rack on his wall. Ugh. Minster Paul walks in and greets my Mom and I with condolences and a really long hand hold. I don’t really like him but I can admit that he is good at his job.

We all sit to discuss the service and I pop a few Altoids. The conversation stays very logistics-focused. We talk about music and the various options for the service. At one point, he asks if Mema had a favorite bible verse and my Mom and I freeze like deer in headlights. It’s okay though, Minister Paul knows a few. He answers every question with a yes ma’am (even if the answer is no) and continuously fills gaps in conversation by saying “bless her”. I am starting to warm up to him.

After our meeting with the Minister we make a stop at Chilis for lunch. I order a fajita platter that is slathered in queso. Our conversation mostly centers on the language we want to use on the easel for Mema. We want to say there is one rose for each year of her life, but more concise. We are both tired and cannot come up with the right words.

After lunch we head back to the hotel to get through more pictures. The viewing is tomorrow and we do not have our photo albums together yet. I also need to buy a shirt to wear to the viewing; in my hasty packing fit I only packed one formal outfit. In an effort of efficiency, I drop my Mom off at the hotel and head over to the mall to shop.  

The stores at the mall are awful, but I eventually find the Calvin Klein section at the Macy’s, I pick out a floral, button-down shirt and it only costs $20. I can not believe it. 

From there I make a quick run to Starbucks and then head back to the hotel. I check in with Mom, who seems to being doing fine, and decide to spend another hour and half in my room catching up on work. I have to make one phone call to a new hire, who’s employment contract contained an error promising him an extra $8,000. This is going to be a tough call and I have been dreading it. Luckily, I am in a place of good perspective as to what is really important in life and the call goes smoothly.

After I wrap up work and quietly meditate with my new binaural beats app for about 15 minutes, I meet back up with my Mom to help with pictures. We spend about an hour working in her room and then decide to head over to “downtown” for dinner. I look for a good restaurant on Yelp and find one called Ms. Hatties that used to be a brothel. This will be fun.

When we arrive at Ms. Hatties it is completely empty. The host assures us that they are open and sits us at the best table in the house. I order a burger with multiple modifications and the server happily complies. The food is okay and our conversation is low energy.

After dinner we head back to the hotel for the night. We have a more errands to take care tomorrow morning and then the viewing will commence tomorrow evening.