I hate funerals and always have. They just make me feel worse than ever. All my life I avoided them.  I didn’t discriminate casual friends or close relatives, I just avoided their funerals. Mom’s funeral and later Cynthia’s, a close friend were the only two I chose to go to for my own piece of mind. My husband has my support if he has to go to a relative’s funeral otherwise; I rather remember them as they were and not lying lifeless in a coffin.

The last few years have found me ether physically or just mentally acknowledging friends leaving this earth.  I am having to face the fact that like me, friends and loved ones are in their twilight years.  I find myself remembering things from childhood long forgotten. I remember the Christmas in 1963 when Mom gave me an autograph book.  Oh how proud I was of that gift.  Mom was the first to write in it. I believe now that Mom in her wisdom knew I would have a hard time dealing with loss that later years would bring.  She wrote:

When twilight draws her curtains back,

and pins them with a star,

Remember that I love you,

no matter where you are.