You think you know someone, especially a loved one. Someone you’ve known for most of your adult life. And, sometimes, you don’t really.

On December 22, we lost my wife’s cousin, Marje. She was an independent woman. She’d worked for the library until she retired, and she was an expert genealogist. In the last few years, we’ve actually been very involved in her life because we helped her with her needs. As she grew older, she needed us more. I’m sure you’ve experienced or seen the same in your life with people in your family.

After she passed away, we had her viewing and graveside ceremony.

It’s in the Book

I’ve known Marje all my married life. She had every single decision about her ceremony and burial spelled out for us in a book she’d prepared. Across the front, its title: Marje’s Stash and Cash. It was fifty-four pages of instructions. She was a librarian to the end.

But before the viewing occurred, as I waited in the cold chapel, I was nervous. A viewing during the holidays on a cold, wet Sunday? I didn’t really know who’d come but the family. I didn’t really know who her friends were, or if she had any. We get so busy in our own lives that we neglect so much.

A Gathering of Friends

As the time came for the viewing to begin, a couple of ladies came in. I introduced myself. They were in one of the three genealogy groups Marje belonged to and lectured for. They told me that there had been a meeting after Marje’s death and that no one knew how they would ever replace her vast knowledge.

Other women came in from the same three groups. Pleasant, kind women who shared with the family their sympathies, said goodbye to Marje and visited with each other. There were dozens. More. The large Chapel was half full. There was laughter and talking. They told stories about Marje.

I has so happy for her. This is what she’d wanted: her friends coming to see her one last time and visiting among themselves.

And it’s odd, isn’t it? Her family did not know just how many people she’d touched. The width of the web of friendship that she enjoyed. The impact that she’d made.

A Pleasant Goodbye

It was a lesson for me. And we had a pleasant day. I know that’s odd since we were saying goodbye, but it was just as Marje planned.

In the book.
Paragraph by paragraph.
Don’t mess it up, family.

I’m sorry, the last little bit was made up by me as a way to say goodbye to Marje as well. I know she would have agreed with it, and told us, “That’s why I made the book!”