As a general rule, funerals suck. That’s about as bluntly as I can put it. Not many redeeming qualities.

So, since I don’t want to wallow in the mire about the funeral we went to this weekend, I’ll stick to the lightness that can only be brought about through the eyes of children.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes and such:

Baby: “She’s sleeping!” (finger to lips) “Shhh…”

Da boys: “Does she have any legs? Where are her legs? I wanna see her legs!”

Oldest: “So, you don’t turn to dust when you die!”
Mom: “No, honey, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” is an expression.”
Oldest: “But what about on Buffy?”

Oldest: “I’m not going to wear my boxers. Because if it sticks out any, Superman doesn’t go with my suit.”

Nobody else brought their two year old. It was quickly apparent why. I didn’t actually hear a single word of the rosary or funeral itself, since I was out walking the baby.

My favorite mental snapshot: The two of us walking through a moonlit cemetary (while missing the Rosary); and an airliner passed close overhead (we’re a mile or two from the airport). My baby started jumping up and down, excited because she was sure that she brought the airplane so close. We practiced our hand signals and I’m sure she’s now qualified to land fighters on an aircraft carrier. Kinda.

If you happened to land at Love Field on Saturday morning, say between ten and noon, and looked down out of the right side of the plane? The really cute girl in the pink dress with her hair up (in a black hairbow, natch’) waving at you? That was us. So hi.

We waved at every plane. Every. Damn. Plane.

The oldest graves I saw showed they died in the mid 1950’s. There was one little girl that died at two weeks of age on Sept. 10, 2001. There were way too many that were in their teens and twenties. Graveyards are strange places.

You can’t raise the dead by screaming. Or by jumping up and down on their graves. Don’t ask how we know this.