Another Funeral
Written by Philessa Hooks Jenkins
Aka Lady PJ
All Rights Reserved
Monday, June 16, 2014
I had another
funeral to go to this weekend. It feels,
to me, like I’m going to a funeral every year and it’s always someone that’s
lived seventy years or more; this time it was my Great Aunt Willie Mae. I recall just a few months ago sitting on the
porch with her at her home in Marion Junction Alabama watching the birds as
they flew by. She was naming the birds for
me and I sat there amazed at the fact that we both enjoyed just sitting there
watching the birds fly by. It was such a
calm and peaceful moment for me. I’m
glad we shared that moment. It’s a very
nice memory.
My Mom and I
drove up there to put flowers on my Grandmother’s grave for her birthday and
now, some three months later, we’re saying goodbye to Aunt Willie Mae. The craziest thing is my Grandmother passed
away two years to the day we buried my Aunt, June 14.
I don’t think it got
real to me until they lowered her casket in the ground, that’s really the time
when it hit me… her ending is final. She
was the last link to my Grandfather’s hometown and the last link to my
Grandmother because they were such good friends; now if I go back there it
would be to visit graves. How sad is
that?
I sat in the
church for about fifteen minutes or more and the lives of my loved ones flashed
right in front of me; the times I shared with my Great Grandmother before she
passed and her burial at the Moore family cemetery, the times we drove up there
when I was a child to visit the house on the hill where my Uncle Berry and Aunt
Willie Mae lived, and the times I sat in church after church saying goodbye to
someone I loved one last time. It made
me realize how fleeting life really is and that eventually someone will one day
say their goodbye’s to me. Hopefully
that’s a really long time from now. I’m
just saying! Much love to you all, Lady
PJ.
