On Funerals, Shivas, And The Cruds

The funeral was last Sunday.

About 800 people attended, which was impressive. Marilyn had been a professor at University of Toronto prior to her retirement and had a ton of good friends and knew many, many people.

My dad gave a fantastic eulogy if I say so myself, and her daughters followed with a fine one as well. Lots of tears were shed.

It was quite the funeral procession to the cemetery, with prayers said there and the burial.

Afterwards we would got to synagogue in the mornings and sat shiva through Wednesday, including through Monday's record breaking ice and snowstorm in Toronto that dropped the most snow in 36 years for November. Unfortunately Tasha and the kids were driving home in it which made a 4.5 hour trip into 7.5 hours of fun.

The shivas were always busy which is good, as it surrounds the grieving family with friends and acquaintances and keeps you very busy, but the long days can and did get tiring. It's also nice to talk with people who had known her for a long time and some fun stories came out, as well as much about her accomplishments. Yes, she will be missed, and I regret we weren't as close as we could have been.

I headed back Wednesday night on the train which was rather a pleasant way to travel.

Unfortunately, I picked up a case of the shiva cruds - uvulitis where I can't really talk, its hard to swallow and it feels like I'm having trouble breathing constantly. Fun. So I got some antibiotics for that and hopefully they will kick in and I should recover soon, but for now its a tired feeling of crud-iness combined with being unable to sleep from waking up feeling like I can't breathe and then nodding off again. Yuck. Ah well, a case of the cruds is worth it to have been there and to support the family.