Have you ever had an experience that was so different from your normal life that you feel like it was a dream? That's how I felt after we left my uncle's viewing on Sunday afternoon.
But let me start at the beginning. Sunday morning, shortly after 10:30 AM this big, blue van rolled into our driveway here in State College.
In it were my brother Dick, his wife Nancy, my step mother, and my sisters Mary Ellen and Doris. They had left my brother's house in Lancaster County two hours earlier. Of course, bathrooms were needed, so I ushered them into the house for that purpose, but gave them a quick tour of the house as well. None of them had been here before.
Then we piled back into the van and went to The Waffle Shop here in State College for a wonderful brunch. I get their Iowa Corn Pancakes every time. Yummm.
Here's the silly side of the table:
And here's the sober side of the table:
Boy, I think we needed all the coffee we could get!
From there we headed two hours west to New Bethlehem Mennonite Church in Clarion County. On the way we gabbed and laughed, and Nancy and I shared things from our humor files, so we laughed a whole lot more. Nancy enlightened us as to what the A, B, C, D, E, etc. in ladies bra sizes stand for. My brother should have had earplugs!!
We found the church easily, because Maggie (Dick and Nancy's GPS) kept shouting her directions and ringing her bell, which sounded a lot like Grandma's door bell. Sometimes they would turn her down, because we did not appreciate the way she would just interrupt our conversations without even saying excuse me.
Upon arriving at the church we expected to see Uncle Lester's family, but we did not know how many other relatives we would see, since my dad's enormous family had spread out all over the world. Also, this was just the viewing, and we knew some people would not come until the funeral the next day. We could not have been more surprised to be greeted by several of our Miller cousins, some of whom we have not seen for forty years! Their mother, Dorothy, was my dad's sister, just as Uncle Lester's wife Arlene is. We spent many, many happy family gatherings together as children and teenagers. Then most of the Millers spread their wings - to Alberta, to Arizona, to Colorado, to New Mexico. Some of them have missed all the funerals and the family gatherings over the decades, and when they heard that Lester died, they decided it was time.
There were many other cousins there too, most of whom we've seen from time to time - from Kentucky, New York state, California, Mexico. After viewing Uncle Lester's body and greeting his large family, we went to the basement of the church. There a huge cousin circle happened. As more arrived, we kept making the circle bigger. And we shared about our lives and our families and our joys and our sorrows. Most of the cousins who were there yesterday are very conservative Mennonites. We look very different on the outside, but my heart was warmed to the core by our likenesses and the common ground we found again and again. Many of them have adopted children, they've reached across racial lines, they've experienced cancer and heartache, they want to reach the world for Christ, they are warm and friendly and talkative, and many of them have loud voices, which apparently we inherited from our grandma!
For the sake of my out-of-state siblings who were not there yesterday, I am going to post the pictures I took with my cell phone.
Finally our driver said it was time to head east. We snacked on all the goodies everyone had brought along, and it's a good thing they did, because we got into a terrible traffic jam, caused by road construction, on Route 80. It felt like we were the only vehicle that was not a tractor trailer truck. Some of us were gasping as it seemed to us that our driver was not paying close enough attention. But he apparently is used to tuning such things out, just as a few other of our husbands are!
When we got to State College around 7 PM, Dick was home from work; unfortunately Anthony and Lori had gone out with Austin, so my family did not get to see him (they were at church in the morning when the vanload arrived.)
Of course, bathrooms were desperately needed again. Then almost everyone piled back into the van, when we suddenly remembered that we had not gotten a group picture. We HAD to have a group picture, so they piled back out of the van again. Dick (husband, not brother) was our photographer.
Left to right: Mary Ellen, Grandma, Nancy, Dick, me, Doris.
Here's a picture Doris took of Lori's beautiful entry garden.
And thus ended my very unique day. I will forever hold it in my heart.
