Sad yet special

Last night after work I met up with Cindy to go to the memorial service for Cindy’s sister-in-law which was held at a near by church.  There was a staggering amount of people there.  Kristin used to work at the post office and Cindy’s brother still does.  There were TONS of PO workers in attendance.  When Cindy left the post office it was under some strained circumstances that didn’t allow her to say goodbye to a lot of her co-workers.  She got an opportunity to catch up with many of them last night which was good for her.

The service obviously was very emotional, losing a young mother is a tragic situation.  I tried my best to keep my emotions in check but it was very difficult.  I found the emotions in the room were tangling with my own personal feelings about the loss of my mom.  When the two combined it was impossible to keep my eyes dry.

Kristin’s two oldest boys got up, one is 17 and the other around 12 and spoke about their mom.  I was amazed at how well both of them expressed their feelings about their mom, despite their age.  They both did much better than I could have ever hoped to at that age.  Their speeches along with Cindy’s brother getting on stage were the most emotional parts of the ceremony as you can imagine.

After the service they had a reception that initially had way too many people trying to fit into too small of a space.  I had to get out of there for a few minutes until the crowd died down.  Once it did we got to talk to more people which was nice.  We didn’t head out until after 9:15. Although my preference is to push anything and everything associated with death far out of my circle of conscience, seeing the outpouring of love and affection for Kristen and the family that was around her gave me a greater appreciation of both her life and theirs.

This weekend we have a rare Sunday race to time, meaning our Saturday is sort of gimped with race prep and an early bed time.