just when it seems that the whole world is out to get you, and nothing that you attempt seems to go the way it's planned, and you think things can't get any worse, they do. up until two weeks ago, i was still out of work, bills piling up, car about to be reposessed by the bank, and not sleeping due to depression. i didn't think that anything worse could happen, but then it did.

a week before, jodi and i flew back east for my younger sister's graduation from high school. a momentous event. the first time in too many years to count that my whole family (brothers & sisters at least) were in the same place at the same time. two days in a row. michael flew up from florida with noel and the kids. kelley drove east from her new place western mass. jodi and i flew in from cali. devin even kidnapped his girlfriend from her graduation celebration (college, UMass) to attend. it was grand. everyone was getting along. catching up. most had not seen michael's family for almost two years.

at the graduation party, i was talking to my sister erin's boyfriend's parents. they were huddled off in the corner of the room, looking like a pair of mice hiding from a rowdy pack of stray cats. "are all these people related?" the father asks. i survey the room, and point out the four people in the room of fifty who aren't. "that's scary, huh?" he asks. i think. "no, not really. what's really scary is half the family isn't even here yet." his eyes grew big, and he was speechless.

tuesday, two days after we got back from boston, i got one of those calls that you never want to get. my grandmother (on my mother's side) had passed away that morning. i was shocked. i had just seen her a few days before, at the graduation party, and she had finally formally met jodi. she had whispered to jodi to hold onto me. and then this. i called home later that day, to pay my respects, and find out when i should come home. not a question of if i was going to come home, just when.

friday, i flew back. i arrived just in time to change and go to the wake. being the wife of a state policeman, there were hundreds of people at the wake, not just family. there was even patrolmen standing guard over the casket. i must have heard "it good to see you, sorry it's not on better circumstances" from every relative that i saw. it was a somber affair, but everyone was trying to be positive. her sons (all seven of them) got together the day before to clean up her house & yard. they joked that she was up in heaven, looking down at them, and thinking "i've been there for years, and it took my passing to get my sons to come over to clean up the yard."

saturday morning was the funeral itself, with a police escorted two hundred plus car procession from the funeral home to the church, then to the gravesite. the hardest part was the final prayer at the funeral home. the priest said the prayer, and everyone was crying by the time he was done. my parents included. i don't think i've ever seen them both cry, and as hard as i was trying, i couldn't hold back tears.

the church service was nice, all of her sons went up to deliver a heartfelt soliloqy, which touched everyone. there was a bagpipe player playing as we left the church, and at the gravesite.

she was loved by everyone she knew, and she will be missed.