someone didn't pass interpersonal communications

last friday morning, my mom and i went to talk to one of the ladies at the memorial gardens about arrangements concerning my dads remains. all in all, it turned out to be a relatively productive meeting and i think we accomplished what we wanted. there was, however, one little hiccough!

one thing that my mom is quite adamant about is that remains are simply that: remains! there is no physical, emotional connection to his remains. he isn't there anymore. and not only that, but realistically, it's not all him. so to my mom, his remains could be buried at the landfill, as long as there was something to mark his life lived on this earth. which is what is most important to most people.

having something to mark my dads life on this earth is really the most important thing to us. so what we decided to do was to have a memorial bench erected not 8 feet from where my two nephews are buried. it is amazing how it worked out. the area where they said we could put the bench is right next to lachlan and nathaniel's markers. it couldn't have worked out better in my opinion... wait, yes it could have!

so all the details were perfect: the bench itself, the location. everything was going great until the woman who was helping with the arrangements said this to me: "wow, you really like to talk over people, don't you?" WHAT?!!! did you honestly say that to me??? if there is one thing that i've learned from my studies so far, it's that you never insult a member of a grieving family... regardless of how long ago someone passed away. if it weren't for lachlan and nathaniel, we would NOT be dealing with them. even if you aren't in the funeral business, most people have at least 2 sense to rub together as to how not to talk to people. unfortunately for us, she is now the person we will have to deal with. YAY! i'm so excited!