I’m back!

As you know, I left for Michigan last week for a vacation. The plan was to spend the first couple of days with one friend and the next couple of days with another friend and visit some family while there. I still got to see everyone (and dozens more), but under slightly less cheerful conditions.

While visiting with my second friend, my uncle (actually he’s my great uncle, but he and my aunt were like grandparents to me as I lost all of my grandparents by the time I was a teenager) died–he’d been sick for the past year so it wasn’t a surprise, but it was still kinda surreal. The funeral was on Tuesday, so I extended my trip a couple of days so I could be there for the funeral and part of shiva*. During shiva, I got to see family and cousins I hadn’t seen in years, and it was great catching up with them, I just wish it had been under different circumstances.

I didn’t take many pictures, mainly because I was crazy busy with family.

And now, the details. During my trip I:

• Played in a pile of leaves with a one-year-old.
• Learned a new version of the “Wheels on the bus” song. It goes “The babies on the bus go waaah waaah waaah…” instead of “The wheels on the bus go round and round…” And, I spent part of Sunday night singing it while sitting in a circle with three other adults and a two-and-a-half-year-old. I laughed so hard, it was a lot of fun.
• Drove past the house I lived in in Bloomfield Hills.
• Realized that I am a total weather wuss–I was wearing three layers of shirts and a jacket and was still freezing while people around me were wearing only a long sleeve shirt. I guess I’m officially a Californian.
• Froze my ass off in the 50 mph winds.
• Couldn’t get over how the traffic signals hang from wires.
• Went to the Franklin Cider Mill again.
• Bought more Mackinac Island Fudge again.
• Was a pallbearer in my uncle’s funeral.
• Put stones on my grandma and papa’s graves.
• Noticed that if you didn’t know we had just come from a funeral, you would think sitting shiva is a joyous occasion.
• Found myself saying, “Oh my god, the last time I saw you, you were a little kid” to many of my 20-something second cousins. Then I realized how much I hated people saying that to me when I was their age.
• Was greeted with, “You’re Hilary? You’re so grown up. And tall!” by about 10 different people in less than an hour.
• Heard amazing and romantic stories of my aunt and uncle’s 61-year marriage.
• Received a voicemail from the guy I met at the Sukkot dinner who asked Annabel Lee for my number. I just called him back and we made plans for Saturday night.

It was a bittersweet trip, but I am so glad I was in Michigan when my uncle died. I can’t imagine not being there to hug my aunt.

*Following a funeral, the family “sits shiva” for seven days. Basically, you stay at home, have services each day where you say Kaddish (mourner’s prayer) and being Jewish, you eat the rest of the time. Family and friends bring food, you sit around and talk, and you remember the person.