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The funeral was pretty moving. There was a portion of it in which people were encouraged to get up and shares memories about Dad. Not really an unusual thing, of course, but it was surprising to see how many of us did get up to talk. My brother Dan, as the last speaker, got up and delivered an impromptu eulogy that was right on the nose. "Dad loved to give advice, whether you wanted it or not." That raised a few smiles and titters. But his final words, "Dad, I hoped I didn't give you too much trouble," made us all bawl like babies.
Dad's absence is already like something bright has been extinguished from our lives. My husband has lost the only person in my family who share much of the same interests and Dad adored Mark. Dad was a father figure to more people than just his children. My cousins Susie and Christina's father lived in Texas, so he wasn't around for them for reasons more than simple distance. Susie I had to walk to the casket, along with a few others.
Whoever did the makeup on Dad did a poor job and we were all clustered around trying to figure out what would help. My sister Laura fixed his hair, my Aunt Betty had me comb Dad's eyebrows and Mark pointed out that Dad didn't have his glasses on. With those three things fixed he looked much more like himself and was much less distressing to approach. At the end Mom put a tiny picture of his beloved dog fancy in his hand and made sure I got the cross from his casket.
At the graveyard, after an intensely moving military ceremony, we all looked at the plate that stretched the length of the inside of the tomb's lid, it was a picture of F-15s streaking across the sky with Dad's name and military rank afixed to it. He earned the right, he worked on the birds for a good portion of the 40 years he worked for McDonnell Douglas. He worked in the Mercury program (briefly) and on Skylab, he also worked on the Phantom aircraft as well as countless other sky-going aircraft. It was so cool to me to have a parent who worked in the space program, I even saw a portion of Skylabe being wheeled through the clean room at Cape Canaveral! I also saw rockets launch. All courtesy of my father who was my hero. :)
Dad's absence is already like something bright has been extinguished from our lives. My husband has lost the only person in my family who share much of the same interests and Dad adored Mark. Dad was a father figure to more people than just his children. My cousins Susie and Christina's father lived in Texas, so he wasn't around for them for reasons more than simple distance. Susie I had to walk to the casket, along with a few others.
Whoever did the makeup on Dad did a poor job and we were all clustered around trying to figure out what would help. My sister Laura fixed his hair, my Aunt Betty had me comb Dad's eyebrows and Mark pointed out that Dad didn't have his glasses on. With those three things fixed he looked much more like himself and was much less distressing to approach. At the end Mom put a tiny picture of his beloved dog fancy in his hand and made sure I got the cross from his casket.
At the graveyard, after an intensely moving military ceremony, we all looked at the plate that stretched the length of the inside of the tomb's lid, it was a picture of F-15s streaking across the sky with Dad's name and military rank afixed to it. He earned the right, he worked on the birds for a good portion of the 40 years he worked for McDonnell Douglas. He worked in the Mercury program (briefly) and on Skylab, he also worked on the Phantom aircraft as well as countless other sky-going aircraft. It was so cool to me to have a parent who worked in the space program, I even saw a portion of Skylabe being wheeled through the clean room at Cape Canaveral! I also saw rockets launch. All courtesy of my father who was my hero. :)
