Two Memories
Two memories of this time. First, two years ago this day was my Mom's funeral - Valentine's Day, 2022. I can smile when I think of it because I know she was so happy to go, and her funeral meant that I could think of it in terms of, "How appropriate that this is the day; the first Valentine's Day they'll be able to be together in seven years. How happy that'll make them both." It was, of course, right in the middle of the pandemic, so though Mom passed away in January, funerals at the National Cemetery in Riverside were so backed up that she couldn't be buried until Feb. 14, and had to spend a month in a refrigerator someplace in Colton. When we got to the cemetery the driveway where the processions assembled looked like a drive-in vaccination site at the height of the pandemic: divided into lanes with cones, with three other funerals cued up ready to roll before us. It was all... very strange and a bit surreal. Though after two years I'm still