The Places You'll Go: Day Two

It seems like the places we've gone have been too much for sad reasons lately. It isn't entirely true, but you know how harsh words loom larger than kind ones? Sad trips loom larger than happy ones as well.
We rolled north, returning to our homeland to say goodbye to someone we loved and with it came all the stress of travel, the joy of reunion and the heartbreak of death.
Pretty typical trip to Indiana lately, I must say.

We rolled into the church right at 10 am on the dot, running late as is our usual in a family with two special needs children, and I was directed into an ante room where we barged straight in on the whole family and Aunt Debbie's casket. The worshipers in the sanctuary were praying, and the processional inside had not begun. As we stumbled in, the twins, Julia and I, I gave Aunt Suzie a hug and right at that moment Miles chose to shout "Poop! I need diaper!"

Well if that's just not a circle of life moment I don't know what is.

I abandoned two of three children with Aunt Suzie and IN HEELS tore back out of the church to find my husband and oldest coming in, deposit Miles with them "He's pooped!" and run BACK into the church just in time to direct my own children to the back of the church. It's always better to be close to an exit when you have two severely autistic children, you never know when someone is going to begin shouting about poop, obviously.

The funny part is, I wasn't embarrassed. I've lived this life long enough that I can't be embarrassed by autism anymore. I felt bad that other people had to be part of the crazy at such a sad and stressful time but, that's also LIFE STUFF and life isn't always tidy and reverent.

I also happen to know Aunt Debbie would've laughed.

The little town where the girls lived (we called them the girls, grown ass almost 70 year old women and we called them the girls, I don't know why) is a little sleepy town on it's way to really damn hip. After the funeral we decided to go wander a bit and see what we could find to see and do, and to let the kids relax a little bit.

We found what might actually be the very worst ice cream shop in the world. I mean, there might be worse, but one usually expects a certain LEVEL of ice cream at these sort of artisan little creamery places right? First see how GRAINY that ice cream is? OMG IT IS TERRIBLE RIGHT? It tasted worse than it looks. It was GRAINY. As though it were Ice Milk which is something you probably never had unless you diet or grew up poor. My grandmother wasn't poor but had a weird thing for it.
It's garbage.

My kids however, thought it was amazeballs.

Trying to use hip words. Go with me.

Here was the really amazing part of our day, however, the moment of meaning in the sorrow that happened as we said goodbye to someone we loved. Julia said "We're just like Aunt Debbie like that man said." That man was the preacher at the funeral and he had talked about the way she loved to travel, and how she was always going places, seeing the world, and visiting he friends along the way. "We like to go lots of places and see the world too," Julia told me. "We are just like Aunt Debbie."

Really, that's one of the best things I've ever heard. And I know she would approve.