The Funeral.

Great grampa John Schaeffer. Personally, I hadn't really known him much.

When I got the call last Wednesday, from my dad, he had said "Well, John died." I didn't even know who he was talking about. Further into the conversation, I asked what had happened, maybe I could then get some idea, but he didn't hear me.

A few moments later, when I went to tell my sister, I realized who he meant.

Of course it's sad when someone dies.

But John had seen ninety eight years of life. Whoa. That must have been hard.

So today, the first dilemma was determining what I could wear that would be appropriate for the funeral.

I'd ended up with the only-other-skirt-besides-my-jean-one, with black leggings, a black shirt, and plain necklace, and my sisters too-tight-on-my-huge-feet black flats. I hoped that I looked presentable.

As we slid into one of the pews, for lack of a better word, with my dad, my sister, myself, my brother Nate, and my step mom Mindy (indeed, in that order), I whispered to my sister, "I've never been to a funeral before..." To which Jess replied, "We went to Jeff's memorial service a few years back." My response was, "I know, but.. he wasn't there."

You see, I hadn't been knowing what to expect, of course, but when we arrived.. Well. It was an open-casket service.

I don't know how to describe how I felt about that.

I knew it was coming, but after the guy (John had been his uncle, so he was one of John's nephews..) had finished his speech thing, a line was formed and people made their way to great-grama, payed their respects, and looked at John.

Well, okay. So I saw John up close, and. I could tell that they had put make up on him. I didn't get why. We all knew he was dead. And look, I'm not trying to be disrespectful, but eh. It was just so weird.

I had seen a dead person once before, on an early-morning drive to school with my friend and her mom; he was lying on the side of the road and luckily the police were already there; I'll never forget the way his pants had looked..

All throughout the service, they talked about how John was sleeping. Come on people, it's sad and it is hard, but he's not sleeping. Oh, but I guess God is coming for him, which I guess is nice for the people who believe in that sort of thing.

Later I found out, from my grandma as she told my dad, that John's wishes had been to just have a grave-side service, and that's not what we did. I mean, after the open-casket service in the .. was it a church (? It didn't seem like one.), we went to the cemetery.

What's weird is, John was buried next to his first wife, and, granted they had been married for 66 years and she had died, it was weird because his current wife was still alive.. Oh, but it must be terrible for her, because she has out-lived all three of her husbands. The first was my grandfathers dad, the next his first step-dad, and the third John, his second step-dad.

Side note; for some odd reason I kind of wanted to be in the line of cars preceding the hearse for the duration of the ride to the burial site; don't ask me why, I'm a freak.

Anyway, we were at the cemetery for a short while, and then we drove to the Whitcomb building where John and my great grandma lived in their apartment/ housing place for the elderly. More socializing took place, with John and great-grams fellow tenants urging us to get the extra fold-out chairs from the closet, to which we politely thanked but declined. But it was awkward, because I didn't really know many of the people there, aside from my grandparents, my great-gram and .. Dot, my dads great-aunt..?!!, my grandparents, my aunt and one of her sons, and the immediate family of mine who I had arrived with. And oh shit, let's not forget.. okay, her name is Joanne, she's my dads aunt, and her child-molesting husband, Pret, who makes me sick and, whenever I glanced his way, made me scowl. It's disturbing that he was there. He disgusts me. He is the scum of the Earth.

Anyway, rest in peace John, you were loved by many.