Thursday morning I got up, got dressed in nice clothes, and drove to Wheeling, WV. \u00a0I stopped for a bite to eat on the way and got to the funeral home at about 1:00. \u00a0 Jeff’s family was already there and were trying to put pictures of him on display – though they could barely see because of the tears. \u00a0I broke down when I saw them – and even more so when I saw the urn amongst the flowers. \u00a0Hugs were exchanged and I did okay until they put on some music. \u00a0One of the songs was by Sarah McLaughlin- a favorite of Jeff’s – and I lost it again.<\/p>\n
The visitors started to arrive at 2:00 and though I wasn’t in the receiving line, I talked to many people that had know Jeff and I. \u00a0It was the suddenness of what happened that had everyone so stunned.<\/p>\n
When I wasn’t talking to anyone, I was kind of dazed. \u00a0Just standing there, caught up in memories and all the what-if’s.<\/p>\n
Three friends of mine and Jeff’s came down from Akron to pay their respects and to check on me. I met them for dinner and they helped me keep my mind off things.<\/p>\n
We then went to the evening calling hours and they met Jeff’s siblings, stayed and talked to me a bit, then made the 2 hour trip back.<\/p>\n
I stayed until the calling hours \u00a0were over, then hung out with his siblings for bit before going to the hotel. \u00a0I slept poorly – not surprisingly.<\/p>\n
Everyone at the visitation was very kind and supportive – with two exceptions.<\/p>\n
One was an old friend of Jeff’s that – in a not so subtle way – implied that what happened to Jeff was my fault. \u00a0I was well on my way to a horrified expression on my face when she realized what she had said and quickly tried to back-peddle. \u00a0She left not long after that and I spent a little time trying to get my mental balance back- not easy since I was already on shaky ground.<\/p>\n
The other was a friend of his family that very thoroughly did not want to acknowledge the relationship I had with Jeff, but was eager to tell me how much she was praying for me. \u00a0While I appreciated the gesture, the grip she had on my arm and her zealous tone made me a little uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
I was good to see so many of Jeff’s friends and family at the visitation and as tough as it was, I’m glad I was there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thursday morning I got up, got dressed in nice clothes, and drove to Wheeling, WV. \u00a0I stopped for a bite to eat on the way and got to the funeral home at about 1:00. \u00a0 Jeff’s family was already there and were trying to put pictures of him on display – though they could barely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1063,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1062\/revisions\/1063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}