With a Little Help From My Friends

We got back from North Carolina last night. It feels like we were gone for days but it was only 26 hours. Man.

We got into NC late Tuesday night. We stayed in Roanoke Rapids, NC which is about 20 or so miles over the border from Virginia. It's a pretty small town with not much there. Surprisingly, the hotel we stayed at was pretty nice. Our expectations weren't very high, but this hotel was brand new and nice.

Anyway, Wednesday we got up and had breakfast. We then had to find a store because John forgot clean underwear. He had this beautiful new suit but no clean unders. Well, he could have gone commando, but I guess that's inappropriate for a funeral. We found a Wal Mart of all places and all was well.

The funeral was just going to be a service at the grave site. It was in Weldon, which is the next town over from where we were staying. It's the town Archie's mom and dad were from. Archie will be buried next to his dad.

At the service, John saw tons of friends he hadn't seen in years. He saw people from his old home town that he hadn't seen since he was a young kid. The minister that conducted the service was great. After the minister, Glenn spoke. He was great. He had one comment that really rung true for me: someone isn't truly gone as long as you have the memories and thoughts about that person. We all have Archie stores. You couldn't know Archie without having a story. So, the big guy is always going to be with us.

After the service, we went to Archie's mom's house. This is the same house that Archie grew up in, and it's just around the corner from the house John grew up in. It was great to see old photos of Archie and hear all those guys that knew him so well tell the stories that weren't really appropriate for the funeral. It was great to see how happy John was to be with his friends, remembering Archie.

You know, as far as funerals go, this was actually a nice time. It wasn't about mourning and grieving, but truly celebrating Archie. Don't get me wrong, there were tears and sadness. Archie's mom and sisters are just distraught. But spending time with John's friends and Archie's family, talking about how great he is, and how crazy life is, was a good way of saying goodbye.

We're back home now. It was wonderful to kiss and hug Keller this morning. He had a great time with my dad. But now it's back to the real world.