Weekend Wrap-up

My uncle's memorial was this weekend and it was a day of much fanfare. I begrudgingly went to the church service, only because I knew it would mean something to my aunt and her son. I was upset about the church service because my uncle did not want a service and for us to make speeches, etc. As we were walking up to the church, I started laughing because I thought I could hear a bagpiper. Lo and behold, a bagpiper was in the church lobby causing a racket! I am so sure my uncle was looking down on us and laughing his ass off at the ridiculousness of it. My uncle wasn't a fan of loud noises, such as a bagpiper.

The bagpiper did give us all a good laugh, except for the aunt and uncle who arranged it because they thought it was lovely and "fitting." I'm not really sure who it was fitting for, but whatever. For a Catholic church, I've got to say the priest was pretty cool. He didn't give the "only the good die young" spiel or anything like that. The part of the service that got me choked up was when two of our cousins got up to perform the song "Sweet Baby Jane" by James Taylor. It was our uncle's favorite song and it was perfect.

After the mass, we all headed back to the neighborhood to get the real memorial started. Friends of the family stepped up and cooked a feast of meats, side dishes and desserts. It was so wonderful to see how they set up the entire backyard and made sure we had everything we could possibly need for dinner. A full mariachi band showed up around 7pm and it was great! Everyone laughed and clapped along as we knew our uncle would have loved it. After the sun went down, we all gathered around and watched a sideshow of our uncle over the years. I was able to contribute a bunch of photos, and we all hooted and hollered funny comments. Shortly after that, a neighbor friend did an amazing fireworks display that lasted nearly thirty minutes!

The party ended up going until 4:30am, way past my bedtime. We celebrated the life of our uncle and all the joyous memories we have of him. In tradition, we did dump out some Budweiser for our dead homey and we all did shots of tequila in honor of our beloved uncle.