“May 1st is a good day for a funeral,” remarked one of the speakers at Aunt Bernita’s funeral today. Indeed it was. We had a bright, beautiful spring day. Aunt Bernita loved to be outside in her garden and this was the kind of a day to be outside.

We started the day by driving to North Salt Lake and meeting Heather up at her new, under construction house. She showed us through what will be a beautiful home. It’s pretty much fully framed and most of the electrical and plumbing work is completed. There’s a guest bedroom just inside the front door with a fabulous view out over the valley. I can see that we’ll have to stay there from time to time, particularly on the return from overseas when it’s far too tired out to drive up north. Heather says that there is about two and a half months of work left on the house. That was the first time I’d been up there and I’m impressed, Heather!

From there we went downtown Salt Lake to a chapel on Evergreen for Aunt Bernita’s funeral. It was well attended by family and ward members. The service went just a little over an hour and was very nicely done. It was a fitting farewell to a good woman. The cemetery was a couple of blocks away and it turns out there were six funerals at the cemetery, all about the same time. After the dedication of the grave, Nina and I went over to Trevor’s grave and spent a few minutes there. The grave marker needed cleaning and clearing off, so Nina got down on the ground and did the job (I took the picture as she did the cleaning). Then it was back to the chapel for a nice lunch from the ward Relief Society.

After lunch we then went over to the nursing home where Aunt Marj is undergoing therapy. She had a very serious bout of pneumonia and after that was brought under control, she was sent from the hospital to the nursing home for further therapy. Now the question is: does she have enough cognative ability remaining to be able to be able to continue to live alone. The consensus from the staff at the nursing home is that her short-term memory is not working well and she’s not safe to be alone. The next step is to have a cognative evaluation done and then decide what to do. As has been said many times, getting old isn’t for the fainthearted.

We’re now back home. It was a full day with lots of driving. It was good to see some family members that I haven’t seen in many years. I’m glad that Aunt Marj is being well looked after. It was nice to visit with Trevor for a few moments. May 1, 2006, was a good day for a funeral.