Saying Good Bye to Grandma

Last weekend was my Grandma Leona's funeral in Fresno, California.  I have to say that if you're going to go to a funeral this is the type of one you want to attend.  It was a tearful celebration of a beautiful life lived.  I was really moved by how many people my Grandma touched.  The funeral ended up being pretty long because people were able to come up and share memories about her.  All of her children, a lot of her grandchildren, and people she worked with continued coming up to speak.  I loved listening to everyone's stories about her. 

More than one person mentioned being her "favorite" grandchild.  What makes my Grandma so special is that she had 27 grandchildren and she made every single one of us feel like we were her favorite.  We found out that she had kept a file for every child and grandchild.  I was surprised to find all the letters I had written to her during my mission, and some of my first piano recital programs from the 80s.  She even had my research abstract from grad school in my file. 

Singing at a funeral is never an easy task, but singing at a funeral for someone you deeply care about is beyond difficult.  I managed to at least keep it together until the end of the song.  It wasn't until I sat down that I burst into tears, so that's about as good as it gets under the conditions. 

 It was wonderful to see everyone.  My entire immediate family was able to be there for the funeral, and it was a lot of fun to be together.  It sounds funny to say you enjoyed a funeral, but I loved seeing all of my cousins and aunts and uncles.  It's a little sad that it takes a funeral to get us all together, but we literally live all over the world.

The Hales Family

 The flowers were beautiful.  My Grandma's favorite color was purple and her favorite flower was tulips, so that's where a lot of the inspiration for the flowers came from.

After the services the entire extended family went out for Mexican food (a request made by my dad since you can't get real Mexican food in Upstate New York), and then we headed over to my Aunt Shirley & Uncle Ron's home for dessert.  Here's a picture of the six Hales siblings that are still alive (Clyde died at 9 months of Leukemia):

Ron, Diane, Cindy, Mom, Karen, Doug