Things I have learned recently:
- Obituaries cost $16/line.
- Funeral directors never use words like "body", "dead", or "mortuary".
- Caskets come in different sizes! They also cost a couple thousand dollars, on average.
- All the rest of it costs several thousand dollars.
- Everything is easier if the funeral director is a member of the deceased's church.
- Grief comes and goes in waves. It seems like the feeling part of my brain is totally separate from the thinking part.
- Mormons get buried in temple clothing.
- Not only is crying okay, it helps -- but it also helps to take a break from crying, and that's okay, too.
- Family members get a lot more funeral than everybody else does.
- Even funeral directors don't necessarily have their burial arrangements all planned out in advance.
- You can laugh and mourn at the same time.
- Sometimes remembering makes me sad, but most of the time it doesn't.
- I have an awful lot of really wonderful friends.
It's hard to imagine that my father only died yesterday. It feels like it's been much, much longer.
