I don't know

I don't feel great right now. I don't know if it's one, or a combination, of these:

1. Sad over the whole memorial service thing

2. "Peopled out"

3. Haven't really had any time today to do knitting or sewing (I need to do 20 more minutes of piano practice but then I can)

and maybe a little bit of: 4. Dental checkup Monday, though my teeth have been less sensitive of late and I feel almost like I can tolerate having metal tools in my mouth for once.

But yeah. Today was the memorial service for a long-time (lifetime) member of the congregation, a retired dentist. (In fact, he was the person I called for advice back in 2013 when I broke that tooth).

So, anyway:

#1. Even though memorial services are easier than true funerals (funerals happen soon after death; grief is still present and raw, and often the person or family opts for open-casket, which is something I frankly find difficult). I think Dr. W. chose to be cremated, and also, the difficulty in traveling for some of his relatives, meant that he died several weeks before the memorial.

But what I find increasingly what gives me pause at these: the frisson that there will come a day when I will be the person traveling. I will be the one, like the granddaughters at this service, telling myself I need to keep it together long enough to read the scripture passage or recount the story or whatever. And I don't like that thought. I mean, right now, both my parents are in tolerably good health (well, except for my dad's severe arthritis, but that's not something that's terminal). But I acknowledge that unless something terrible happens to me, I will be doing this for them some day.

I made it okay through the service, though when they did the memorial video (this is a thing now, I guess), it did make me sad - the W.'s children are about my age (the W's are just a bit older than my own parents) and so there were those old 1970s era photos where the men have discreet sideburns and the clothes and even the pigment colors in those old, slightly faded photos, and it kind of hit me in the nostalgia.

(And yes, I think there's a lot of truth to the thing a minister friend once told me, that when you mourn, you're not mourning a person, you're mourning the "auld lang syne" - the good times that you had that you will never have again with them)

And also, they played Debussy's "Clair de Lune" over that part of the video, and at the best of times that piece makes me slightly sad.

I had work to do - I got down at church shortly before 10:30 with my sandwiches (I made ham-and-cheese buns. I bought a pound and a half of ham and 18 of the little Hawaiian bread  buns. I had at least a quarter pound of ham leftover, which I gave to one of the other women who has a grandson to feed - I don't need ham in the house, too much salt). I also prepared communion for tomorrow (it is "my" month). I helped out with some other stuff, putting ice in cups, making sure the necessary serving spoons were out, etc.

I find in a slightly sad or scary situation I do better if I have something to do. I've speculated before that if I were alive during Blitz-era London, I'd maybe be one of those women who rolled bandages for the Red Cross, or made tea to serve people bombed out of their houses, or been an ambulance driver, something like that. If I am trying to help at least I am not brooding about my own situation.

The lunch was just for family - about 20 people. (There were two other kinds of sandwiches, and a large broccoli salad, and deviled eggs and fruit). I mostly poured iced tea for people.

I guess doing ham and cheese sandwiches was a good idea; all of my sandwiches went, and I suppose if they hadn't been good people would have warned other people off of them.

As I've said before, I think serving the family a meal either before or after the service is important. I've been there myself (my grandmother's funeral): you're tired and sad and you know you should eat something, especially if you had to travel far, but the whole thing of finding a restaurant and order something seems like a little too much.

After the service there was a reception but the PEO (a philanthropic organization, sort of a sorority, that Dr. W's widow belonged to) provided the food for that and mostly had it all out on trays for serving.

But yeah. #2 kicked in midway through the reception. The lunch was easy enough - I had a purpose to fulfill and also it was a smaller group. But the reception was for everyone, and pretty much everyone came.

including a couple people who had left the congregation some years back under....not the happiest circumstances, or who (in my personal opinion, and I could be wrong) blew up some minor situation into a major slight and dropped responsibilities and left. (And this is my stuff: that was not how I was raised. I was raised in the "it's not about you, this is bigger than your feelings" school of thought and I have spent time reminding myself that everyone screws up and sometimes I just get my feelings hurt, but to get over it... And a lot of time, since I can make things about me on my blog, after I get my feelings hurt, I never hear an apology.)

And even with people who are no longer part of us because they had to move away....still, seeing someone you've not seen for years sometimes seems a little awkward and difficult and you can't really catch up at an event like this, and....I don't know. It's not the same as a reunion dinner or somesuch where everyone is happy and can take time to catch up. At things like memorial services, you feel....kind of not right....catching up with a person, you feel like you need to focus on the grieving family, and so conversations seem weird and stilted.

I left before the reception was over because there wasn't much for me to do (all the desserts were out and they really only needed one person to refill the water container) and I was feeling kind of sad and overwhelmed and wanting to be away from people for a while.

(Ugh, I also just had something - some of the talk on the news - about someone I knew who has wound up, thanks to bad actions by a close relative, in very bad circumstances. (How bad? We don't even know if this person is still alive because their relative has removed their means of contacting anyone in the "outside world." They are far away and we're not entirely sure where, so we can't even try to visit. I had repressed that right up until I heard about a person in the news who was recently incarcerated and had their cell phone taken away....I think that was another thing, hearing news of people who are gone and absent, and some of that news was not happy)

#3 is kind of self-explanatory. I probably, tomorrow, need to (a) get my piano practice in early, (b) call my dad (Father's Day) right after lunch, and then go into my sewing room for the rest of the afternoon.

I think though, also on reflection, allergies and being on my feet a lot today contributes to my feeling down. I KNOW there is something down at church that sets off my allergies (very old building: probably mold in the duct system) and also they had a huge flower arrangement with lilies in it on the serving table, and the smell of lilies always bothers me a little.

And it's hot and humid (came home to a full dehumidifier). We might get rain next week but they keep dropping the likelihood of that so I don't know.

On the one hand, no rain means I can push out having to mow to a later day, on the other hand, no rain is depressing. One of the hardest things - I find - about living here is that the summers are pretty much 100% predictable: it gets hot around late May or early June, it stays hot, it doesn't rain, the temperature remains between 90 and 110 until September at least. I need a little variation in my weather; I need the occasional cloudy day. Back in Ohio we often would get a cool front mid summer, or days when it rained, and it was a nice change. Even Illinois would get rain and storms and sometimes the odd cool day. But this really does feel kind of eternal, and it's hard to get away from the heat, even as I spend a lot of money to run a dehumidifier and an air conditioner.

One of the things I like about winter, and I find this year in particular I miss, are those really cold nights when I can roll up in a bunch of blankets and be cozy. I think what it is is that it makes me feel psychologically "safe," and I can't get that feeling in the summer because it's too hot.When it's hot I sleep "shallowly" and I wake up a lot, and I have disjointed and unpleasant dreams that I remember with greater detail than dreams when it's cold and I sleep more deeply.

(I keep the house at 76, which is the warmest temperature at which I still sleep, in the summer. In the winter, at night, I will often turn the thermostat down to 68 or even 66. It's funny how much of a difference that 10 degrees makes in my sleep but there you are.)