Monday March 29th, 2010

Wake up in Winder, family, people, house full. Loud... just a little hard to get my mind around the reason Neil and I were there. I was told when to do everything. That was a good thing. Lots of lovely Winder ladies, with lots of perfume. Today was " Calling hours". I called it " viewing hours" in an earlier post, I was , wrong. I was also scared our of my mind.

Whispered , in a back room, with the door locked and the water running : " I might not go..." That did not go over well,not only was I going, I was staying until the bitter end.

Lunch.
Drinking. Early and often...
Jason and baby Hawkins. There were several babies that day.
Best , and largest pound cake ever. Still warm, that crusty top with the under layer of slightly damp/sticky, then the cake. It was also just huge.
It was worthy of two pictures. A friend of Mother's sent the center piece that day.
Ham. Cooked in the micro wave for 75 min. Everyone was talking about it.
Seriously, and Neil will back me up on this. Fried Chicken fingers.. A lot of people ate this chicken, and the big tub only filled back up, kitchen elves, I was watching, never saw it happen.
I am going to guess that a dozen or so of these were gone through. Look which one is empty. [ sidebar: Neil did not know you could go into a store, just buy a large cup of ice, and ride around Winder with a gallon of diet sweet tea ]

Smith Funeral Home.

I did not ,again, take enough pictures. I'm sure some people thought it was tacky that I was taking pics at all. Kyle gives a fuzzy ........

THAD! In full Capt. America drag, he thought it was a fancy dress visiting hours. My dad would have loved that. No ,I jest.. he keeps our country safe. I hope , I HOPE, he knows how happy I was to see him, and how darn sweet he was the whole time we were in Winder.. ( I'll keep that just between us.. he has his rough street cred to keep up) Lovely to see his parents as well.

Ok, this was only my second " visiting hours" ever. It is HOT, it is VERY CROWDED, it is full of people that have not seen me since I was like 18. Now... and forgive me this one time of patting myself on the back, but like ten people came up to me and said what a good job I was doing... You can find the strength to do the things that you have to do. In the end, as scared as I was, I am very happy I did this. It was good to see some folks. You know this whole crazy " letting people in" thing, really could catch on....
This was my posse. B.Day and Neil.... just the best.

The flowers that Dahn and David sent ↑, the flowers that Joyce and David sent ↓
Just great big hugs from Upstate NY and Texas. Again, I hope they know how very much this meant to me. And just how much they helped me....

Back at the house.....

Frankie, Freta, Montez... ( have been on this sofa, or one in the same spot, MANY MANY TIMES)
I am not even sure how many folks came back over to the house. I left at 8 on the dot, and people were there. No one stayed that late.
Mike R., Pam , Jeff, Susan.... some GOOD stories were told.
The red kitchen.
It is probably wrong to look this happy the night before a funeral, but we were celebrating my dad's life. And really ya'll, not many folks enjoyed a good party more than Pete. This is all family...