Heartache and Happiness

Wow...what an exhausting day. It's amazing to me that having an especially emotional day always seems to drain me so much physically. Today was the funeral of my Uncle Tracy, my mom's older brother, who passed away unexpectedly over the weekend. His death didn't really hit me until today.

I have so many memories of my uncle from my childhood--tons of family dinners, holiday gatherings, a few float trips down the river, and hours of listening to him sing and play guitar. Sadly though, I don't have a lot of memories of him from my adult life. The last time I actually saw him was when this picture was taken, which was two years ago when my mom was in the midst of her chemotherapy. It makes me so sad that I hadn't made an effort to see him more recently.

It was such a sad day in so many ways, but it was also so wonderful to see so many extended family members that I haven't seen in years. I was so happy to see my dear cousins that I grew up playing with, and yet it was heartbreaking to see them mourn the loss of their father. Sharing my mom's sorrow as she buried her second and last brother was so painful, and yet getting to see my mom's older sister and my cousin who live in Houston brought such great joy. It was a day filled with tremendous heartache but also happiness.

The service was really quite nice. Some of my uncle's former band mates played music that my uncle would have loved and played himself. There were tons of flowers and the church was packed--Tracy was definitely loved by many. After the burial at the beautiful Chapman cemetery, which is right across from the golf course, our family gathered at the clubhouse for a meal provided by the women of the church. In traditional church potluck fashion, there were some...shall we say...interesting items served. We had to laugh, because it truly looked like people had cleaned out their fridge and thrown together some sort of salad while doing so. I couldn't resist taking some pictures.

This was the most bizarre "salad" I'd ever seen--fettucini with apples, pineapple, and cherries. Seriously, I'm not kidding. I tried it only because I was so crazily curious. It tasted as bizarre as it sounds.

This was some sort of potato salad, but it had eggs and some sort of cream cheese mixture on top that was sprinkled with pepper. I didn't have room for it on my plate but I tasted Chad's, and it actually wasn't horrible.

I actually didn't bring the camera along to take pictures of bizarre food items--the intention was to get some pictures of my extended family. I'm so glad I did, since you never know when we might all get together again. Hopefully next time it will be under strictly happy circumstances.