Almost forgot to post an update, about the gravesite fiasco! Well, that day was something else, lemme tell ya! As I raced back and forth trying to figure out exactly where the cemetary was, all I could think of was those chairs sitting there with people in them, looking and wondering where the hell the pastor was….Oh Lord! A dead body with no-one to say the proper words over it. Poor, poor Mildred!
Somewhere between those frantic thoughts, it dawned on me, that there was nothing I could do any faster than I was already doing it. I remembered that at least I didn’t have to worry about family, because she was the last, with no friends other than the executor. So I slowed my speed and my thoughts down, and just resigned myself to not making it and what to do to calm the waters. Okay…call the cemetary and find the plot, make a phone call to the “executor” and then to the funeral director.
I did go to the gravesite with Julie and found the plot, and we went through the committal service anyway. Just the two of us. That felt better. For me anyway, I am sure that ole Mildred was laying there beside her husband cracking up at the sight of folks losing their cool because she was dead. As Julie and I went to lunch (before tackling the funeral director-cause he was livid-from what I was told)...my cell phone rang, and it was the executor, offering her sympathies to me, for getting lost! I couldn’t believe it. I was so worried that she would be upset, and she wasn’t.
When we reached the funeral home, and I rang the bell, totally prepared for the worse tongue lashing ever, the man opened the door and looked sternly at me, and I said: “Do you have on your belt?” He said “yes” quizzically. And then I said “Which way do you want me to bend over?” And he almost laughed, but of course he couldn’t, wouldn’t look good because he was soo pissed. I explained to him that I spoke to the executor and she was okay, and he said that if she was okay, then so was he. We were able to shake hands and call it a day.
Now, I gotta tell you guys about the fight I had with the secretary a day later….
gotta go now, my supervisor is on his way in!