a very long post and a picture.

Listening to: Finally Home by MercyMe

Lyric love: "There's so much I want to say; so much I want you to know, when I finally make it home. Then I'll gaze upon the throne of the King, frozen in my steps. And all the questions that I swore I would ask, words just won't come yet. I'm so amazed at what I've seen, so much more than this old mind can hold."

Tuesday, December 27th 2011 -  8:01 AM
I woke up at eight o'clock to a phone call, which I ignored by pushing the phone to the floor. Literally ten seconds later I hear my mom's phone ring across the house, and I sat up knowing why everyone was calling, and that I was wrong to ignore my phone. My great aunt had died about fifteen minutes earlier. I changed clothes and grabbed my dad's guitar. I went into the woods, sat on a fallen tree, and played until the sun was high and I couldn't feel the chill of the wind.

That's all I remember of that day.

Wednesday, December 28th 2011
I went with my dad to JC Penney to return some clothes he had gotten for Christmas, and I spent about forty-five minutes walking around Sephora. The people there probably thought I was about to rob the place by the way I was circling Philosophy like a vulture. In the end, I left with lipstick and the perfume I plan to grow old with.

Later that night, I went to church. Afterward, since I had time to kill before I picked up my mom from work, I went to Chick-fil-A (thirty minutes before they closed) and ate there, just me and The Hunger Games. It was nice and quiet and peaceful. I've never gone to a restaurant by myself before. After that, I went to Walgreens, then pulled into an empty parking lot by a busy highway and cried. It was nice watching the cars go by; like sitting on the bank of a river. The lights were huge and floating and broken on the damp highway, and it seemed so nice.

Then I crossed the highway to Walgreens again, got a notebook and filled the first four pages with words. After that, I drove across town and sat in the parking lot of my mom's workplace and listened to Lady Antebellum. We went to iHOP after that, then went home.

Thursday, December 29th 2011 - 9:20 AM
We were under an overpass on the way to the funeral home, and my mom got a voicemail that my deceased aunt's daughter had gone into labor three months early. She had seen her mother's obituary in the newspaper and gone into premature labor. The train went by, and I watched the wheels against the rails, on and on, and I learned how they were assembled.

For some unexplainable reason, watching the train slip through the morning sunlight, I felt old. I don't really mean physically old, just old. It's how you'd feel waking up from a dream where you lived until you were forty, only to sit up and realize you're not even eighteen. It feels like having more memories than time for them to have happened.

When we got to the funeral home, we mingled. My great uncle walked up to me and stated, "Jessie Suzanne, I've been watching you, and your face has the perfect bone structure so you could be one of those Castilian dancers in Spain." I had no idea what to make of that... o.O

After a reasonable amount of time, we left. (Happy New Year, by the way...it's now 2012.) After we left, we went straight to the hospital. We walked in, and the nurses were preparing for the delivery. We took her two daughters and son and left again, with parting commands of, "Don't tell anyone about the labor!"

My sweet baby cousin!

About thirty minutes later, in a parking lot, my mom informed the kids that they had a new baby brother, Elijah Benjamin Blair, weighing one pound and eleven ounces. He was flown to another hospital, and as of now he's doing well, though I know his family would appreciate your prayers.


December 30th 2011 - 10:00 AM
We pulled into the funeral home, supposedly on time. We walked in and sat down in the back, just before we were told to get up and go pay our respects. We walked down the isle, talked to my cousins for about two seconds, and walked out the back door (like, five feet from my car). Just then, my mom noticed that we were at the very back of the funeral procession (the end always gets lost). So, discreetly, we got out and rearranged some orange cones so we were now in the middle of the procession. Driving in a funeral procession is stressful. After almost hitting the Avalon in front of me and almost being hit by the Escalade behind me, we showed up at the church.

***NOTE***

 I think I was somewhat of a disruption to the whole event. 

Here follows the awkward/embarrassing moments of December 30th, 2011.

So, towards the middle of the service, I needed to take my inhaler so I got up and walked back down the isle to the entrance. On the way back, I had an ungraceful moment and tripped in the heels I was wearing. About five minutes later, my mom told me to wait in the foyer because they were going to have incense and it was strong. Went back to the entrance. They had left the double doors open, so the whole hallway was freezing.

I checked my phone, went into the ladies room and fixed my makeup, checked my phone again, yanked open the door and nearly body slammed the bishop (I missed him by two feet). Apparently, while I was in the other room, they had begun to take the casket back to the hearse outside. Someone gave me a disapproving look, and I ran across the hall to the crying room. I walked in and suddenly had the feeling that I was in a fishbowl due to the glass walls, and I stepped backwards into the hall and almost got ran over by the casket. Ever felt like curling up and dying? Yeah. So I walked into the ladies room and couldn't breathe because there were two babies getting changed. I walked back out and got stepped on by distant cousins.

Somehow, my mom and I met at my car and went on to the grave site. 

After the burial, a few friends and family were to meet at a restaurant for the reception, which was by invitation only. For some reason, though, everyone from the funeral followed us there. The restaurant owner was so nice as to close his entire restaurant for the day, so we could hold the reception there. So when the workers were under the impression that we would be there at 1:00, we had a slight problem when we showed up at 11:50. But, this served well, because the masses of people and cars waiting outside decided they didn't want to wait an hour to eat, and went somewhere else. Not that we didn't want them to eat with us, but not all of us could fit in the tiny restaurant. It wasn't an hour, after all, but instead around thirty minutes. It was very interesting, to say the least, and I found a cousin of mine, Halie, who also carries books in her purse. That's awesome...

We went to the hospital to see how everyone was, then ran a few errands and went home. It was an interesting week to be sure; full of worry, family, happiness, concern, family, stress, some tears, family, embarrassment, and the kind of laughter that makes your stomach hurt.

Praise be to the Lord, who gives and takes away.

-Suzanne