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Family Gatherings
by Becky Brett
Submitted: Tuesday, July 29, 2008
I recently traveled to the Denver area for a family memorial service. Now, I’ve never been much for family gatherings, and this was a memorial service for someone I had never met, so the excitement level for this trip was at about .5 on a scale of 1-10 (and it was that only because the in-laws offered to pay for everything). The deceased was my husband’s aunt, who had been married to my father-in-law’s brother.
When I arrived at said gathering, I learned many interesting things about my staid FIL that I never would have guessed. For instance, he and his younger brother once tried to create a lake in their house. Yep. A lake. When they were kids, a room upstairs in their house was about two steps lower than the other rooms. So they decided to take buckets of water up to the room and turn it into their very own watering hole—a plan that failed only due to the weak ceiling below, which gave way while they were in the process of filling the room. Fortunately no one was hurt.
I also learned that FIL had briefly dated the deceased as a young man, and that she had been known to say that she could have married either of the men. She had also been the planner for the annual University of Kentucky Derby Party in the Denver area for several years. So many aspects of a person’s life, and so little time to get to know them all….
At least I had an opportunity to meet my husband’s extended family (and I got some dirt on my FIL). Yes, it’s a shame that someone had to die in order for a family to come together, but that is the way life and priorities often work. I’m sure none of us likes admitting this, but funerals bring people together, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing.
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