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Saturday was kind of a weird day.

It was the opening of duck season, and it was also our wedding anniversary. And there was also a funeral that day, or a memorial service, actually. For my uncle, my dad's older brother, who had died last month in Las Vegas.

Bob was going to go out on Friday evening and spend the night in his van so he could get up at dawn and be ready to shoot the first duck. Well, he and several of his friends, not just him by himself. They have an annual thing where they take food and drink (I'm imagining LOTS of drink), and eat and sit around and tell stories, then grab a couple of hours of sleep, then get up and shoot guns.

Well, who knows? That's how I imagine it anyway. It's probably a lot less dramatic. Or maybe not.

He said he'd be home by noon, at least, so it wouldn't be any problem going out to dinner for anniversary. And then I found out that I had to drive down to LaMonte anyway for the funeral, so we planned to just meet up at home again sometime mid-afternoon, then go out to dinner in the evening.

The funeral was wrenching, as they always are, of course, no matter the circumstances. My uncle had been ill for several years, had had several strokes, and it was one of those cases where it was probably a blessing, although it's always hard to look at it that way. And it wasn't really that that made it so wrenching, it was my cousin standing up in front to talk about his dad, and the musical selections, one of which was "Oh Danny Boy."

My God. I can hardly even think of it without tearing up. My sister pointed it out to me in the program and we just looked at each other and thought, "Oh no." It wasn't sung, thank goodness, though--it was played on a violin. Even so, my sister and I sat there, clutching each others' hand, and biting our lips to keep from crying. The worst part for me, though, was at the very end, when a bagpiper came into the church and played "Amazing Grace."

Our family (Guthrie) is originally from Scotland--way back--and my uncle and his family were big into the Scottish clan thing. My two male cousins wore Guthrie tartan kilts to the funeral, and the female cousins wore tartan skirts and white blouses, and my aunt wore tartan as well, in the form of a sash over a white dress.

There was a luncheon served in the church hall after the service, put on by the ladies of the church. While everyone was milling around, I walked up to the pass-through serving counter to get a glass of tea, and the woman behind the counter said, "Are you Mary Lou's daughter?" I said yes, I was, and she said, "I knew it! You look just like her!" The woman next to her said, "You sound just like her, too!"

It turns out that the woman--whose name I can't now remember--has known my mother forever, and went to school with her. We all thought it was pretty funny and cool that they knew who I was just by looking at my face. I know I have my mom's square jaw, and I can sometimes look in the mirror or at a photograph of myself and see her, but I didn't know it was so obvious to the rest of the world.

It's always interesting to go back there; it usually is for funerals, sadly, at least lately. One man came up to my father, and they talked, and then later I asked my sister who that was. She said, "Oh, don't you remember? He's the one who hit Daddy over the head with a hammer in the turnip patch." I actually don't remember that story (my sister has an incredible memory), and we got interrupted before I could ask what happened, but it's pretty cool to be able to talk to people who went to gradeschool with my parents. And some who beat them up as children, I guess.

I got home mid-afternoon, and Bob was already home, taking a nap. He was pretty tired, and I told him I didn't care, that we could just stay home, but he said no, he was taking me out to dinner, since it was the anniversary of "the happiest day of your [my] life." This is an ongoing theme. That the day he married me was the happiest day of my life, thus our wedding anniversary is for me. I mostly just roll my eyes at him, which only encourages him, but I suppose it's fairly harmless. And he does make me happy.

Before he left on Friday, he left a box on my desk that I found when I got home Friday night. I asked him if I should open it when I talked to him on Friday night; he said I could if I wanted. I thought I'd wait, but I could tell it was a jewelry box, and on Saturday morning I decided I should open it and see if it was something I could wear to the funeral. It was a lovely pair of blue topaz earrings, so I did wear them.

And when I got home on Saturday, there were three roses in a vase--one red, one pink, and one white. He really does take pretty good care of me.

As we were driving to dinner (which turned out to be somewhat disappointing, and we probably won't go there again, at least for awhile), I was telling Bob about the funeral. I was trying to tell him about the music, but couldn't actually talk, and had to stop and get control of myself. Kind of funny, really, and I know he thought it was weird. He started naming off songs, trying to guess. I can't remember any of the others, but one was "Amazing Grace," and when I could finally talk, I said yes, that was one of them, but the one that really tore me up was "Oh Danny Boy."

I was starting to tell him about what my cousin Rob talked about, about all the stories he told about my uncle, but just then, Bob said, "Look at that! Now, that's dangerous," as he pointed over to the next lane in the highway, where a ladder lay in the middle of the road.

I said, "Oh my God!" and had to pause again before I could tell him that one of the stories that Rob told was about how his father would come home from his job about once a week with something he'd found on the highway on his way home--a coil of rope, a box of tools, a ladder. I don't know if my uncle would have chosen to send a message to me--we weren't especially close, I don't think, no more so than any other cousin--but that's what it felt like.

Every time I go to a funeral, I find myself trying to keep a stiff upper lip, to keep from crying or showing emotion. It's okay to look sad, of course, that's expected. But somehow we've decided that we shouldn't cry, or at least not overtly. In my case, I think it's a reluctance to make anyone else feel uncomfortable, because I know that seeing other people cry makes me uncomfortable. I was really okay until I saw a young girl--one of my uncle's granddaughters--with red eyes, trying mightily to keep her tears inside--and then I lost it myself. Well, not lost it, just teared up myself and bit my lip to keep from letting it out.

I guess that's one of the things that we've lost as we've become civilized--the ability to express strong emotion without worrying what other people will think. Not that I think we should all go around gnashing our teeth and wailing, but we'd probably have fewer ulcers if we did.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month