Weddings and Funerals

I am finding an alarming resemblance between the two. You put on nice clothes, you sit in church and everyone's crying, though for distinctly different reasons. Then you go to a reception and eat on paper plates, either perched on your lap or occasionally on linen covered tables. You talk to the people around you, typically the same people you talk to everyday, so there isn't that much to say. And there tends to be flowers everywhere, though no one can say exactly why.

Last weekend we attended my niece's wedding. (I'd like to take this time to remind you that the husband comes from a huge family; he is the baby out of nine kids. And his nieces and nephews range in age from 1 to 32. Our peanut will be the 30th grandchild!) It was a beautiful spot and was an outdoor wedding. So, naturally, it rained the whole time. And man was it cold! It's amazing how easily we are chilled in early fall after being warm all summer. (But 40 degrees is cold...I don't care who you are.) The wedding party shivered their way through the ceremony, then climbed into their ski jackets like the rest of us! Otherwise, it was a beautiful wedding. (Congratulations, Angie and Jon!)

This afternoon I am attending a funeral for a sweet lady. We all called her "Oma", which is German for "grandma", even though she was not technically our grandma. She was the mother of one of my mom's dear friends, and the grandmother of one of my friends. She was always in attendance at holiday gatherings, and she was not only sweet but hilarious! She had a thick German accent, which seemed to get thicker if she'd had a few glasses of wine! (Or a couple cordial cups of Cherry Herring!) And she talked so fast that sometimes you could hardly understand her. But when you could, she had some of the most amazing stories to tell! I interviewed her for a Philosophy paper I was writing a few years ago, and she led a fascinating life. She lived in Germany during WWII. Some stories she couldn't tell because her blood pressure would skyrocket, and her doctor asked her not to go into those stories anymore. (We can imagine the kind of atrocities a young woman might witness during a war that was taking place practically in her backyard.) But some were funny! Like the time she and her girlfriends filled stockings with excrement and climbed up on the roof to throw them at the Russian soldiers below! (What can I say...girls will be girls!) And when the war was over, she and her baby would go to the train station everyday to see if her husband would be on it. He was being held in a POW camp, so he wasn't on the train. But everyday she'd be there, just in case that was the day he'd come home. Someone at the train station offered to adopt her baby, since they figured she was a widow and just hadn't dealt with the loss yet. But she and the baby kept checking the train everyday until one day, he was on it! (That's the kind of stuff that only happens in movies!) They were able to emigrate here after the war, and lived back east until moving out to Montana in their golden years. Oma was the person who made my angel laugh for the first time when she was a baby! (Although, to be fair you couldn't help but smile when you were talking to Oma!) She had an amazing life.

I suppose that's the best any of us can hope for. At the end of our days here, people will look back and say "She lived an amazing life."