After 5 days in Arizona, I return. My Uncle F.T.'s funeral was on Friday. My family caravanned out to Yuma to attend the service and be there for each other as best we could. Some laughter out of tears and some tears out of laughter. As it should be.
My Aunt Kathy (F.T.'s wife) died three years ago, nearly to the day. In many ways, this funeral was for both of them and it felt like losing her all over again. The family gathered together in a house I've known all my life, furnished just as it always has been and feeling very empty all the same. I look at my cousins losing both parents in three years and wonder how I could possibly manage going through what they are going through.
Our family is quite large and over the years it has grown larger. I am among the youngest of about a dozen first cousins in the Byrne clan. As my cousins married and had children the family grew and grew. Now I'm watching it shrink on the other end. We've lost 4 family members in the last 3 years. I don't like the shrinking as much as the growing.
It's all well and good to talk about the circle of life, but I find it much easier to deal with thoughts of my own mortality than that of those I love.
We don't get together often enough, we decided. We'll see each other more, we promised. I hope so.
Yuma, Arizona is right on the border. The day after the funeral -- on my Uncle's birthday -- we went to a little town in Mexico called Alcodones that's just 10 minutes away. We went to my Uncle's favorite restaurant and related the news to the folks that worked there, who mourned along with the family. We toasted F.T. with margaritas and ate some killer tacos while a mariachi band played "Happy Birthday" in honor of F.T.
It was a good day. I know he would have been there with us, if he could have.