We’ve trekked from reality to the surreal (or the frozen tundra, whatever) and have made it back to the real world of deadlines, diapers and daycare. I am finding it difficult to get back into the daily grind, but I’m sure it will hit me like a ton of bricks soon when I’m scrambling to do the things I need to do.

We made it to northwestern Missouri early Friday morning and were greeted by falling snow and a wintry mix of thick ice and snow on the ground. It was just over two months ago that we left with me proclaiming that I never wanted to return to Missouri in the winter ever again, but I guess Gramps had other things in mind. Then again, he was literally out of his mind with an illness hard to understand, so I know he didn’t intend to harass me. He didn’t even know who I was.

Most of the family came for the funeral and most arrived Friday at some point. My younger brothers both made it back with their families and so did my cousin Cheri and her family and my cousin Jenny. My cousin Debbie has willfully divorced the family. My cousin Steve died eight years ago. My older brother and his wife were unable to attend due to a prior engagement in Colorado. My cousins Dusty and Adele didn’t come for whatever reason. But nonetheless, there were still plenty of family members there. There were 11 in our clan, alone, plus my two uncles and their wives and my grandmother.

Friday afternoon we had lunch at The Diner. We saw Grannie’s cousin, Lillian, there. She lost her husband of almost 58 years (I think?) around Thanksgiving. I remember going to their big white Victorian house as a little girl and being intrigued by how many rooms there were. There seemed to be hundreds and I never fully navigated that house. I remember canning (?) sauerkraut with her and Grannie and I remember the little white bridge, which was made to use as a prop for my mom’s prom pictures in 1977, in their front yard. That was probably the last time I’ll ever see her as she is moving to Colorado to be closer to her daughter and grandchildren. It’s weird to know that this will probably be the very last encounter with someone you’ve known all of your life.

I’m sorry. I’m all weepy, sentimental and emotional today. I thought I was okay, and I was for most of the day, until I saw an elderly man at the gas station at lunchtime. He was pumping gas next to me and asked me about my Saturn. I wondered if his wife knew how to pump gas and what she’d do if he suddenly died, just like my other grandfather did nearly 11 years ago. I swear – I am one of the most emotional people. lol.

But anyway. When we were leaving The Diner I was being nosy and started to look at the little card they had at the counter. It was a card from the funeral home with my grandfather’s information on it. When he was born. When he died. Who he married almost 61 years ago and the names of their three sons, my dad and my uncles. When he would be buried and where. It was a little surreal to see one of those with my [maiden] last name on it. I picked it up and carried it to my dad, half dreading doing so. If I was feeling those emotions over my grandfather, I can’t imagine the feelings he was feeling over it being his own father.

Friday night the visitation was held and Saturday morning my uncle Trey conducted the funeral service. My grandfather was cremated, but had he not already been dead, he would have frozen to death during his funeral. I know I almost did. It was 10°F with snow and ice on the ground, the cemetery is on a hill and the wind blowing, and someone decided we needed to do a graveside service. Needless to say, or maybe not(?), the children stayed home with Grannie and Auntie Di while the rest of us funeralized Gramps. (By the way, I totally know that funeralized isn’t a real word, but one of our community correspondents always says this and it’s become and inside joke in the office. But it totally fits. Funeralized.) My uncle sang a couple of songs and played the guitar, but stopped because his fingers were freezing. My brother Ryne, who’s in the Navy and has been serving on the honor guard for the last six months, presented Grandma with the interment flag and said a little speech. It was very nice. I’m really proud of him. And then they did a 21-gun salute and played Taps. Tearjerking, I tell you. And my tears flowed into my hair and turned into ice. For real. When we got into the car I had icy tears frozen to strands of my hair. Loveliness. Dear grandmothers, when the time comes (which will hopefully be a long time from now), please make your exits when it’s warm outside. Your favorite granddaughter is asking you nicely and batting her eyelashes. (I’m kidding! Go when you need to go and don’t worry about me.)

I recorded the entire funeral using Darin’s digital camera. Afterwards I wanted pictures of the urn, except there was no urn. I opened the box and saw my grandfather’s remains in a plastic bag. It looked like red clay mixed with dirt and pebbles. I can’t describe the feeling of seeing your loved one, my tough as nails grandfather who I never imagined dying, as ashes and bone fragments.

I hadn’t seen him in five years, just before I got married and just before I found out I was pregnant with Jaylen. I’m trying very hard not to regret that. I knew he wouldn’t remember me anyway, so why have that kind of painful memory? In all honestly, and it goes without saying, it’s hard to watch the people you adore grow older and lose their sharpness, their mobility, their mind. My aunt put recent pictures of him out with the rest of the photos and it was heartbreaking to see those. There was quite a difference – and not a good one – in five years. He looked like an old man. I mean, I guess he was an old man; he would have turned 85 on May 7. I just never saw him – and don’t see my grandmothers – as old, even after 80.

Once that was over, we headed to pick up the children and go to the reception/luncheon. My aunt’s sister-in-law made the food for all of us. And of course I had to be all paparazzi-like and make people take pictures. Always with the pictures, right? Yes. You never know when you won’t have someone, so I don’t feel bad about taking as many pictures as my little heart desires. We took a new family picture – and I could punch myself for not making sure I’d chosen the correct settings (on Darin’s camera, I lost my memory card in my suitcase!) because they are pixelated like crazy. But we are missing some folks and it will be outdated come May and again in September, so we’ll just have to take new ones. Which I’m sure will thrill everyone, but they have no choice as long as I’m around.

When we were leaving the luncheon, my aunt’s sister-in-law came back to collect her items. She had to cook for another funeral that day and had just come from it with news – the husband of the woman who was to be buried had a heart attack and DIED during his wife’s funeral. Is that sad or what? He was to be buried today.

We returned to Grannie’s house and everyone went down for a nap while I tried to finish up some work. Always trying to help, I had planned to do 3-5 stories to email to my coworkers for Monday’s paper. I left an hour and a half early on Thursday, after completing my work (early!), and had taken off on Friday and Monday. So I worked on one of those stories for a bit and took a trip to the drugstore with Ryne and Kelly. My poor sister-in-law is nine weeks away from having my newest nephew and her feet and ankles are very swollen. We went to get her some support hose and me some allergy/cold medicine. When we came back, I took a Benadryl, played the Instrumental playlist on my iPod and got back to work. Then Jenna got up. And Jaylen. And then I passed out on my keyboard. (Crap.) Taking a nap is a very rare thing for me, I just don’t like to sleep during the daytime. But I did. I left Jaylen in the sunroom to play with his cars while I tried to nap with Jenna on the couch. Jenna was not having it, however, which irritated me. She never did nap, but I did. And very well. That Benadryl kicked my butt.

Saturday night we went back to Grandma’s house and visited with our crazy family members. Sunday morning we all left. Mom, Ryne and Kelly all caught a flight back to Atlanta, then Ryne and Kelly headed back to Virginia and my mom to Florida (she’s on travel yet again). Dad, the kids and I drove in one car and Tyrel, Katie and Caiden in another. The kids did pretty well, but grew antsy towards the end. I lost myself in a book and was left feeling inspired to write my own [boring!] memoirs. As if I don’t do it daily, you know.

Yesterday I sent my children to their regular daytime places and I stayed home to get other loose ends tied up, things put away, etc. I feel guilty about that, I really do. Why should I, though? I work hard. I get my job done. My grandfather died and I worked every single day, just not in the office. I made calls to police chiefs and the sheriff’s office on Friday. I wrote on Friday, Saturday and Monday morning. I worked on another story idea while we were away and have plans to tie in a story from my parents’ hometown to our current home. I work a lot of overtime with various meetings and special things on the weekends and I don’t get paid for those things, I just get paid for 40 hours worth of work each week (when, truth be told, it’s rare when I work only 40 hours). And yet I still feel guilty for taking one day off. In the morning I worked on a story, then I had lunch with Darin at his lovely office and came home to post pictures on Flickr and clean house.

Darin had been out of town for a week and a half prior to us leaving. He got home about 45 minutes after we left on Thursday. I hadn’t seen him in two weeks by the time I finally saw him again. I missed him. And yeah, I know that’s nothing like a deployment to Iraq or anything, but I still missed him. He brought me some homemade tortillas from San Antonio, but unfortunately they molded before I could get them. Oh well. Must make friends with the mexicans up here, right? Anyway. My dad invited Darin up for dinner, which is kind of unusual for my dad. lol. So Darin came up last night and helped the kids and I clean while we waited on dinner. Jaiden’s job was to put the books away properly on the shelf and we ended up adding more space because, dude, we have so many kids’ books. Then he read the kids bedtime stories while I finished the dinner dishes and caught up with my Cosmo. He’s good at reading to the kids, Emma included, before bed whereas I get impatient with it.

Today was my first day back to the normal grind. Highlights from today include sugar cookies from Subway (even though they weren’t as soft and chewy as normal), a new Manic Mommies podcast, Chikizie rockin’ “She a Woman” on Idol tonight (will be downloading that from iTunes tomorrow), books from Jaiden’s book fair and paying through the nose for gas. Oh, wait. That really wasn’t a highlight. Crap. And, oh yeah, we totally needed new books, right? Wrong. But you can never have too many, until it’s time to put them away after your five-year-old has emptied the shelf, that is. We got a new Skippyjon Jones book, one of my favorite series, as well as Alice the Fairy (one of Emma’s favorites that I think is totally adorable), some books that Jaiden can read as a beginning reader, a Dora book about trucks and a dinosaur/train book for Jaiden and a Scooby Doo book for Emma. Emma loves Scooby Doo; it actually snowed 4-6 inches here in Tipton County while we were away and Darin told me Emma kept calling the snow “the snowbeast” after a Scooby Doo movie. lol. In 2006 I blogged about children’s books and I intend to do an updated version this week or next for my column. Darin’s little sister, Dara, is a librarian and she is going to be my go-to girl for that, which rocks. I love her taste in children’s books. She bought Emma the Alice the Fairy book as well as some from the Pigeon series.

The kids are all doing well. Jaiden is trying to get over her crud. Jaylen is still hyper and hopefully will be told he doesn’t have to wear his sling again after Friday’s appointment. Jenna is initiating potty training and loves to wear her new Ariel panties, so much so that she insisted on wearing them to bed last night, which I would not allow; we comprised with putting them over her diaper. And they’re all cute as a button and well-behaved in comparison to other kids I’ve encountered (not all of them, I’m just saying some from recent encounters).

Oh, and I paid off my divorce today. I hope that he will finally DO SOMETHING FOR ME now that I have paid him more than a thousand dollars. Like, get me divorced sometime this decade. I’m getting very irate over here. I saw him last at the end of January and he said he’d file some paperwork, then would let me know when we had a court date. I was really hoping to be divorced this month or next, but um, YEAH RIGHT. He neglected to inform me that he would do NOTHING until I paid him in full. Thanks, dude. Appreciate that. And I really appreciate you wasting my precious time. If I am still married on my anniversary (May 22), I will be expecting a gift of wood or silverware. I am so over all of this.

And I suppose that’s it. Finally.

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