Through our rather challenging week of traveling and funeral with LuLu, we have to say we’re most thankful for ear plugs. Yep…they saved the day on many occasions.

One thing is for sure; we have a family that loves to laugh. And as more of us showed up in Mattoon, Illinois, the laughter reached louder and louder decibels. Super Dad, in an unexpected stroke of genius, remembered he had some ear plugs in his suitcase from his work. LuLu has rejected ear plugs on numerous occasions before; but after her successful trip to Chuck E. Cheese’s , she was willing to try again.

And the ear plugs did the trick. She could sit through dinner, splash in the pool, and even hang out as the grown ups sat around reminiscing. She wasn’t without her “moments” of meltdown. But as one of our relatives commented, “She did much better than I expected. I was expecting one long continuous meltdown.”

And, in reality, so was I. I was pleasantly surprised that she actually did a full 5 hours of school work in our hotel room on Monday. (The reward was pool time and eating out with the family.) And I was surprised at how subdued she was at the funeral and at the luncheon afterwards.

It allowed us to have a little bit of bliss in the midst of a rough situation. Frankly, it was about as much fun as a funeral could get. Which is a tribute to Super Grandpa for sure, that he was able to instill such love of family and such a wicked sense of humor in so many of his children and grandchildren. The other blessing is that nearly everyone was there: 9 of the 10 grandchildren; and 7 of the ten great-grandchildren, and sundry spouses who my brother-in-law calls the “extras”.

So, we didn’t waste the photo op! When we get all the photos exchanged, I bet we’ll have over 200 photos of the event…maybe more. I’m including two of my favorites in this post. The first is our immediate family “snuggling in close” as our photographer requested. It’s a rarity that we have all the kids together in one place, dressed up. And we actually look like we like each other.


The other is this picture of a mixture of cousins who are all about the same age, and have fond memories of each other from childhood events at Grandma Jo and Pappa Charlie’s. They look like they love each other too.

We always hate leaving these events. Despite the sad purpose of pulling us all together; we love the fact that we are pulled…all together. No one really seemed to mind that the wind chill was in single digits or that the small Illinois farm town pretty much rolled up the streets at 9 pm (which was only 6 pm for some of our family coming from Pacific time!)

We begged the hotel manager to let us all stay in the pool a little later…if we kept the noise down (yeah, right). The children ran from room to room, knowing they would be greeted with love. And for a brief few days we felt what it would feel like if our family was like families of Grandpa Charlie’s generation, large and living close by.

But today, we all climbed aboard those jet planes or strapped into cars and headed to the four corners of the country, full of memories and thankful not only for the 200 pictures, but for the email and phones that keep us as close as possible.