funeral post mortem

We have made it back from our long trek east for my grandfather's funeral. Thank you very much for your wishes of condolences. I appreciate them very much. The funeral was fairly light, as these things go. My grandfather was known as the life of the party and an incorrigible trickster, who always made people laugh. Some of the funny memories were shared during the service, which steered the mood away from gloomy. The man lived to be 82. He had a good life, and by what my mom tells me, he had a good death. I was comforted by this a great deal.

It's never easy with my mom, and because her father had just died, and she was organizing the funeral, she was stressed out of her gourd. I managed to lose my cool at her only once, which I realize was once too many, but still not as bad as it could have been. I kept reminding myself that this was one of the worse days of her life, and it helped me be kinder to her.

In the last weeks of my grandfather's life, I had told my mother that if she felt it could cheer him up, she could share with him the news that I am pregnant. I knew that this meant I would have no control over who would be told, but according to my therapist, this was my gift to him. It did make him happy, so my relatives said. He felt sad that he wouldn't be around when the baby was born, but happy that there would be a baby.

Fast forward to the funeral, and there I was, not quite 10 weeks pregnant, with people rubbing my belly. I tried not to get my panties in a knot about it, and just go along - although, I can't say I like people I hardly know touching my belly (all there is to touch right now is chub - my chub). I felt a bit like an imposter, thinking about what the hell would happen if I didn't 'produce' a baby after all that. On the whole, it was probably good to get the chance to practice being out about the pregnancy among people I never see (except my immediate family). It's positively weird to have a large group of other people share in this idea that you have that there is a human being growing inside of you. There were moments when I thought to myself that it was mass hysteria. But mostly, I just tried to let others' confidence that there would be a baby come March influence my own sense of things.

After we left the funeral home, gone to my grandmother's place to regroup, gone out to eat with my mom and stepdad, and came back to where we were staying, Mr. A felt it was finally time to share with me a little story of what happened that day. We had been talking with some of my second cousins, one of which went on at length about her fertility issues. I intimated that our growing gummy bear had required much time and effort, without going into any details about it. She later cornered Mr. A and told him what he needed to do to address the problem. She proceeded to tell him that his testicles were probably too warm, and that he needed to soak them in ice water. Keep in mind that Mr. A had NEVER met this woman. He looked just as flabbergasted when recounting the story to me, as I'm sure he did when she was dispensing her unsolicited advice.