the funeral
I made it thru the funeral with my mouth mostly shut - if you know me, you know how hard it was;)
The viewing was very brief, maybe 15 minutes. If I didn't know it was Brent, I couldn't have seen the resemblance. THe only thing theat looked like Brent was his mouth. His hair was closely cropped to his head, he had sort of wild curly hair. His arms looked short, but as he had scoliosis, I know I never seen him stand straight up, so it's difficult to judge.
It was Kimba, Dan & Will & me for about 10 minutes or so. Sybil showed up and gave us a little bit of info. None of it made any sense to me, because she was talking about Brent having a heat stroke while on a bus, but he went into the hospital on Sunday. The last time he would have been on the bus would have been Friday. I did ask if there was a definitive diagnosis for Brent, if there was a shunt and she said he was _not_hydrocephalic, the diagnosis was retardation with autistic tendencies. I never heard the phrase "autistic tendencies"...and he certainly _appeared_ to be hydrogephalic, but I didn't argue the point. (yes, I can keep my mouth shut once in a while;))
When we got to the gravesite, there were several people from the group home Brent lived. These people had taken care of Brent. Even a young loady that was on maternity leave came as she was Brent's primary caregiver. They spoke a little about Brent. I ended up sitting between Sybil & Kimba, Kimba took the seat at the end, Sybil took the seat in the middle. I wasn't too crazy about that (sitting next to Sybil) but what the heck. After the service, we just sat there. I didn't want to be the first one to get up, though it was extremely hot. The man from the funeral home explained that the service was over and that the workers would be filling the grave. (They lowered th casket while we were there - haven't seen them do that for a _long_ time). FInally Kimba got up and than Sybil & I did, too.
If this was a Hallmark movie, this would be the point where Kimba and Sybil would make some sort of reconciliation. But life is not Hallmark and that didn't happen. I just sort of paced around because I was nervous, I didn't want to interfere with whatever was going to go on between Sybil & Kimba. They spoke very briefly, Sybil handed Kimba a bag of Brent's stuff (that Sybil had already gone thru and pulled out the "good stuff") and that was about it. I was happy that I kept my mouth shut. (In reality, it doesn't matter if I did or didn't - I'm still the "bad guy" to Sybil.)
Sybil took off, leaving us with a picture of her son, our nephew and Brent's favorite shoes. Sybil said they were too old and used to be put on him for the burial. Does that make any sense? If they were his favorite, you might as well put them on him for one last time. *sigh*
Sybil sped off, I guess to her home, and we went home too. If we were drinking folks, I think we would have gotten plastered. But we're not and the rest of the day was fairly uneventful.
Kimba's got a long road ahead of him with all of this mess. I hope I can be supportive of him.
The viewing was very brief, maybe 15 minutes. If I didn't know it was Brent, I couldn't have seen the resemblance. THe only thing theat looked like Brent was his mouth. His hair was closely cropped to his head, he had sort of wild curly hair. His arms looked short, but as he had scoliosis, I know I never seen him stand straight up, so it's difficult to judge.
It was Kimba, Dan & Will & me for about 10 minutes or so. Sybil showed up and gave us a little bit of info. None of it made any sense to me, because she was talking about Brent having a heat stroke while on a bus, but he went into the hospital on Sunday. The last time he would have been on the bus would have been Friday. I did ask if there was a definitive diagnosis for Brent, if there was a shunt and she said he was _not_hydrocephalic, the diagnosis was retardation with autistic tendencies. I never heard the phrase "autistic tendencies"...and he certainly _appeared_ to be hydrogephalic, but I didn't argue the point. (yes, I can keep my mouth shut once in a while;))
When we got to the gravesite, there were several people from the group home Brent lived. These people had taken care of Brent. Even a young loady that was on maternity leave came as she was Brent's primary caregiver. They spoke a little about Brent. I ended up sitting between Sybil & Kimba, Kimba took the seat at the end, Sybil took the seat in the middle. I wasn't too crazy about that (sitting next to Sybil) but what the heck. After the service, we just sat there. I didn't want to be the first one to get up, though it was extremely hot. The man from the funeral home explained that the service was over and that the workers would be filling the grave. (They lowered th casket while we were there - haven't seen them do that for a _long_ time). FInally Kimba got up and than Sybil & I did, too.
If this was a Hallmark movie, this would be the point where Kimba and Sybil would make some sort of reconciliation. But life is not Hallmark and that didn't happen. I just sort of paced around because I was nervous, I didn't want to interfere with whatever was going to go on between Sybil & Kimba. They spoke very briefly, Sybil handed Kimba a bag of Brent's stuff (that Sybil had already gone thru and pulled out the "good stuff") and that was about it. I was happy that I kept my mouth shut. (In reality, it doesn't matter if I did or didn't - I'm still the "bad guy" to Sybil.)
Sybil took off, leaving us with a picture of her son, our nephew and Brent's favorite shoes. Sybil said they were too old and used to be put on him for the burial. Does that make any sense? If they were his favorite, you might as well put them on him for one last time. *sigh*
Sybil sped off, I guess to her home, and we went home too. If we were drinking folks, I think we would have gotten plastered. But we're not and the rest of the day was fairly uneventful.
Kimba's got a long road ahead of him with all of this mess. I hope I can be supportive of him.