So, back to Dad. He died at home so the hospice nurse comes to pronounce. She took my time of death because I did not want Daddy's official "life" to be expanded by her travel time. Weird, but important to me. She called the Coroner and our funeral home that came to the house for him. They bring a blue fake velvet thing and an odd stainless scooper kind of stretcher. Had seen them a thousand times at work. Odd to see them in our living room. I asked them not to cover his face as Mom was still holding his hand. They let her walk with him to the hearse.

We made it through the VERY Southern Baptist funeral where the minister actually said cancer is a wage of sin. (Les had his hand pressing on one of my thighs and my sister on the other to keep me in my chair). We drove to the Internment in that long awful line. I was with Mom (I think to dole out nitroglycerin as needed). In the old South, folks used to stop their cars, get out and bow their heads to a procession. I still feel guilty when I don't. We rode to the outskirts of town and then folks started pulling over and a few got out. I remember the gentle smile on my mother's face. "Wayman would have liked that."

We got to the memorial garden (what a wonderful euphemism for graveyard) and there were a number of uniformed men. Daddy had expressed he did not want military honors at his funeral even though he had two purple hearts and a Bronze Star from the war. My brother was livid because my elder sister had arranged for it anyway. It did not matter to me; I just wanted to be done. I was pretty much okay, no tears...helped to be pissed at the minister. But, there is something dreadfully mournful about �Taps.� Even worse is the sharp crack of the rifles in the salute. We were sitting within a marble mausoleum and the three rounds echoed around �til they were multiples of each other. I jumped with the first, buried my head in Les�s shoulder with the second and cried with the third. The sound hurt like fist punches.

There is respite in everything and often that comes in the form of humor, they remove the flag and fold it seriously, studiously and formally. They gather shell casings from the salute and place them within the folds. Then the head of the color guard comes and kneels before the widow and says something like. On behalf of the United States, President and Mrs. Clinton present this flag in honor of your husband�s military service.

I smiled, no wonder Daddy did not want this...He was an ardent Republican.