My grandfather's funeral/Thanksgiving

Well this past week has been rather interesting. There was some good and some bad, I'll start with the bad. My Grandfather, after spending the last 5 or so years on an oxygen tank and slowly declining in health, passed away last Sunday evening. My received a call on my cellphone from my dad just 30 minutes before the end of work that evening to inform me of this. The funeral was going to be held off until Wednesday (I think in an attempt to allow all the family time to come to town for it), so we decided to leave as soon as my class ended Tuesday, and I would skip my Wednesday classes. So all according to plan, we left Tuesday and made it down there an hour before visitation that evening. We of course went to visitation, where I met up with my good friend and cousin Andrew. It was mostly just a bunch of boring socializing, everyone seemed to be ok despite the passing of a loved one, I think because we had been expecting it for such a long time. So me and Andrew hung out most of that evening and just cracked jokes with each other as usual, and I even met some people around my age from his church (he goes to a Church of Christ), the Bradford family.

The next day, irony begins. By the way, did I mention to yall that I was a Paul Bearer? Well I was, and due to the events that happened on this day I became just a little bit more important than that. We arrived an hour before the funeral services begun. In fact when we arrived, we had the pleasure of seeing my pastor and his wife, Brother Calvin Warren and Sister Betty, pull up. So for the next hour, just the usual socializing, then they called us Paul Bearers to the back while everyone took a seat. They were going to let us make an entrance once everything was set to go, except for one little problem... The preacher for the funeral did not show up!!!

So we waited for about 15 minutes, and then decided to go ahead and start playing some music for the people in the santuary that were waiting. My mom, my grandmother, and some other family members then came back to see what was going on. After a few minutes, my mom suggested the idea of asking Brother Warren to conduct the service. I personally did not like the idea because I knew that Brother Warren didnt even know my grandfather. So I told her I would do it instead if necessary. I went outside to look for my spare bible which might have been left in my car, but could not find it, so I asked the funeral director if they had a bible we could use. They brought us one, and not having the time to look and see if it was a KJV 1611 or anything like that, I opened it up and wrote down on a bookmarker the passages that my grandmother wanted to have read for the service. We decided that I would go up to read the scriptures, but instead of the message that would have been given, we decided to have family members come up to share their memories of my grandfather when that time comes, and we reluctantly asked Brother Warren to say the closing prayer, but I asked my dad to inform him of this first before we start the funeral, which he did.

So after all of this panic, we decided to go with our scratched up method for conducting the funeral service, and to be honest, it worked out great. Brother Warren even got up and gave a nice message about the love that he noticed we all shared for my grandfather before he said the prayer, he did a wonderful job. After that everything worked out as it should. We drove up to the spot for his burial, and he was given a military burial (you know, with 3 shots fired in the air, and then Taps is played). O by the way, I also forgot to mention my grandfather was in the Air Force, and was in WWII. He didnt fight in the war, but he flew planes for combat (I dont know the details exactly). After the funeral we all went back to my grandmothers house (where we were staying for the nights we were down there anyway), and had a wonderful reception.

The next day, we had a nice Thanksgiving dinner there at my grandmother's. I think God planned my grandfather's death at this time, because he wanted us to be together like this for Thanksgiving. Although most of my family on that side is very worldly, they are good people that I enjoy hanging out with, even if my attempts to convert them havent been too successful. We had a lot of fun playing football in the backyard, and playing games at night.

On Friday, we drove back to Memphis, and went to have Thanksgiving with the other side of my family, my dad's side. We got in around 1pm Friday, and went over to my Aunt Gwen's and Uncle Dexter's at 2pm, to have another delicious meal, at which I, this time, was the only dark meat eater, so I enjoyed the pleasure of gobbling up both of the turkey legs. Afterwards, my Aunt Gwen gave us two tickets to the Memphis/Lamar game at the FedEx Forum on Monday night, that they are not going to use. The tickets are on the club level, and I definently want to get there early. So, Lord willing, I plan to skip class Monday night (its a pointless class anyway, to be honest), to get there, which should be a fun game, despite a blowout.

Well thats pretty much all the news I have for now. Except, o wait, the scores for the week: Memphis 26, Marshall 3, Tigers are bowl eligible and likely!!!! Hopefully we're Hawaii bound, I think that would be a nice send-off for DeAngelo. Also, after wins against Alabama and UCLA, the Memphis basketball team just barely lost to Duke Friday night, it was a heartbreaker, but o well.. if our team of Freshman can compete like that with an established Duke program, this early in the season, that makes me very optimistic about what we have to offer as the season progresses.

So anyway, God Bless,
Joe


P.S. What happened to the preacher that was supposed to preach for my grandfather's funeral? He was working out in the garden and lost track of time.... He even came over to my grandmother's house after everything and was very apologetic, and my grandmother spoke as if she held absolutely nothing against him. I admire her forgiving heart, but personally, I could not think so highly of someone who leaves a mourning family at a time when they want to give a loved one an honorable funeral. RIP Ray Lawson