Rita's Memorial
Yesterday I went with my family to Rita's (my uncle's mother's) memorial. They never held a funeral for her, or if they did, there were no invitations sent out. This memorial was held two months after her passing. I didn't really know anybody there besides people from my own family. It was a nice affair. They held the service in a park. My uncle gave a good speech, and then his sister (whom I've only met once) gave her speech. She also read from a note written by Rita's sister who lives in Michigan. She couldn't come out because it's too hard for her to travel. A few others talked about their memories of Rita, friends and a neighbor. I learned that Rita had worked at St. Jude hospital. I never knew that. I knew that she worked with psychiatric patients, but not about that. She also loved to cook, but when she got Celiac Disease she had to give up those things she loved. Kidney failure also came up so she had to be on all these special diets. It was a sad situation. She had been suffering so long and she nearly died seven years ago, but she was a strong person. In honor of her memory, some of her favorite recipes were served for lunch. There were turkey and pulled pork sandwiches and her famous cheese potatoes. At our tables were cards where we could write our favorite memory of Rita. It was the cheese potatoes that Grammy remembered, which she had for our Christmas dinner in back in 1997. Of course I don't remember that, but apparently Grammy had that written in her diary. My memory was of getting birthday cards from her every year. Whenever there was a family gathering, usually for someone's birthday, she would be there. Not so much in the last few years of her life due to her long battles of illness, but the last time we saw her was on Mother's Day, where she appeared to be having one of her better moments. My parents memories were of the stories she had told about her patients.
The food was good, especially the dessert which were these little banana muffins with chocolate and a walnut inside. Behind the tables was a small building, which was actually a museum. They were only open on the first and third Saturday of every month, so my uncle Doug wanted to make sure that he had the gathering when the building was open so we could check it out. Inside there are displays about the history of the area, mostly about the Native Americans that lived there. It was pretty neat.
Among the friends of my aunt and uncle were people from their dive club. One of them was this older man who had a cute little rat terrier dog. He just let him roam free and my mom and I enjoyed petting him.
Of the people who weren't there was my brother, whom couldn't make it because he had to work since they were short of people. My mom wanted him to come so he could see the girl he had danced with at my aunt and uncle's wedding, who is now grown up. Also not there were Derek and Amy and I'm pretty sure there was no excuse for them not to be there :/
So Rita was a big part of our lives and it still feels weird that she's gone.
The food was good, especially the dessert which were these little banana muffins with chocolate and a walnut inside. Behind the tables was a small building, which was actually a museum. They were only open on the first and third Saturday of every month, so my uncle Doug wanted to make sure that he had the gathering when the building was open so we could check it out. Inside there are displays about the history of the area, mostly about the Native Americans that lived there. It was pretty neat.
Among the friends of my aunt and uncle were people from their dive club. One of them was this older man who had a cute little rat terrier dog. He just let him roam free and my mom and I enjoyed petting him.
Of the people who weren't there was my brother, whom couldn't make it because he had to work since they were short of people. My mom wanted him to come so he could see the girl he had danced with at my aunt and uncle's wedding, who is now grown up. Also not there were Derek and Amy and I'm pretty sure there was no excuse for them not to be there :/
So Rita was a big part of our lives and it still feels weird that she's gone.