that's that, then.

We had a nice send-off for my grandmother this afternoon. Her sisters, a niece and nephew and his daughters and granddaughter, and all my grandmother's children and her children's children and her children's children's children - close to thirty of us in all, in family alone, for she was a not very public person in life. My mother read from Proverbs and held it together (just) through all the talk of how you know a virtuous woman, and invited everyone to join in a custom she'd picked up from my father's family and, if they chose, to throw a shovelful of earth into the grave. I used the back of the shovel even though I was not first in line. My sister-in-law found us some stones to place there as well, a custom my aunt has entirely joined, and then I took a moment to teach the younger children that (a) one stone per person per visit was enough, but more importantly (b) it might be best not to dig the stones out of the ground near other people's gravestones in order to place them on hers. (Nobody was defiling anything. Just out of an abundance of caution, dontchaknow.)

Then back to my cousin's for a lovely afternoon of family get-togethering. We'll need someone to get married soon so we can have a positive reason for getting together.