Well, my relatives (the ones who were already in the U.P or could get there quickly) are now sitting down to Family Lunch, or whatever they call the after-funeral meal up there. (We call it Bereavement Dinner, but I think that's a little bit formal for the folks in the U.P.)

(My aunt's funeral was today. I found out about it last night so even if I had been able to get away to go, I couldn't have... there's not enough time to get to a small somewhat-remote village in Northern Michigan from here in the approximately 17 hours I would have had).

I remember the Family Lunch after my grandmother's funeral. In a strange way it is a relief...you feel like the whole situation is nearly over, that you are almost done with putting on the public face and smiling (wanly, at best, for me, I remember) and shaking hands of people you barely remember, and that soon you can go back to the hotel and take off your stockings and change out of the rather stiff dress you bought for the occasion and either cry, or sit down and read a book, or write letters of thanks to people who sent flowers, or something...whatever seems to ease your mind most.

(And I have to say - maybe it's terrible of me to say this, but - not having to look at the casket any more was kind of a relief. Having that tangible reminder that "she is dead" gone somehow helped shift my thinking away from grief and towards happier memories).

Actually, for me, the "Family Time" (or the Viewing as they called it up there) was the hardest on me, because the relatives in charge of planning things opted for open casket and I was just not emotionally prepared for that. (I was 20 but it was the first funeral of a family member I had actually gone to, and the first open-casket situation I'd been in.) I dearly wish my mom had warned me, but then again, maybe she didn't know.

***

I looked at the quilt in the frame last night while working on it and if I am persistent, I likely will finish it before my self-imposed "before I'm 40" deadline. I don't have that many more of the big blocks to do - I think six or seven, maybe - and then I have to decide how elaborately I am going to quilt the borders. The outermost one I have an oval pattern marked on to, but the inner border is pieced and I have to admit at this point I'm tempted to leave it unquilted rather than do the stitch-around-each-patch I had originally ambitiously planned. Or I may just do the diagonal of each block (they are half-square triangles sewn together to give squares, but the squares are "random" as to which direction the diagonal goes).

One of the "big" blocks I can do in 2 to 3 hours (depending on if it's one of the feathered ones or one of the ones with just straight lines) so perhaps another 30 hours total (I have a few more of the triangular setting blocks to quilt as well) before I get to the border. That's a month if I do an hour a day on average. (It may be faster; I'm not good at predicting how long these kind of things take me).