They did a beautiful job, touching....I had never been to a police funeral before, so many officers in uniform, doing intricate maneuvers and I guess traditional police things.....bagpipes? I've never seen so many men in uniform looking solemn. We parked right next to our old next-door neighbors and dear friends, who I had most hoped to see, so we walked in with them and sat with them. I think I've already told the story of how Hubby and the dad of the family had a little too much fun on the 4th of July one year when he returned from serving in Iraq. But it felt good to be surrounded by "family" like that. It was rather surreal, they had his motorcycle next to the casket, and they even started it at the end of the ceremony, right in the church! Also, they had the 21 gun salute inside the church. That was one of the only things I heard, except the bagpipes. It was kinda awful, People were telling stories of his life and such. I could tell when they came to sad parts because everyone picked up their tissues and even men cried, and then when someone told something funny about him, they would all relax and look at each other. It felt very very long to me. I was weeping so much the lady next to me gave me a tissue. I was thinking awful thoughts like, is this what my mother's funeral someday (she is elderly) and the funerals of other loved ones eventually will be like, I won't be able to HEAR it? Won't even know what the people said? So that was too hard to think about, so I sang inside my head Jackson Browne's For a Dancer and Eric Claptons If I Saw You in Heaven.
We also ran into a few old friends, as I suspected we would, one really surprised me, we did not know who-all knew this man. We also learned that his wife had filed for divorce one WEEK before he was drowned....and that they had been separated a year. I cannot imagine how she must be feeling today, my sadness for her just doubled or tripled. And during that same year, he had found Jesus and became a Christian (I was surprised he wasn't one before), just in the last 10 months, and his dad said that he and Mike had had a huge conciliation in their lives at that point as well. I felt worst of all for his dad, no man who raises a man as good as that should have to speak at his funeral.
Oh, and Amazing Grace is TERRIBLE on the bagpipes. They should have let the friend I was with sing, she has the voice of an angel. They were saying it is the police way though. I also thought a 21 gun salute would be 21 booms, not three.
The whole thing was surreal.
