The Memorial

This post is a bit late.

There is a number of reasons for that.

I have been an extremely busy girl since early July. In fact I was gone every single weekend in August.

It was so bad I could not even clean my room for a month.

I know because I did so finally for the first time this last weekend.

Before you all get judgmental. It was not a pigsty, but I definitely had some clutter that had built up and some of my traveling items that needed to be stored.

Which is why there has been a bit of a lag in my posting. It was not for lack of things to write. Nay, it is because I was so busy each week preparing for the next trip out of town.

Of which I have a few I am going to tell you about. First though I need to get caught up on this.

Mid Spring I had to attend the funeral of my Mom's sister. My Aunt.

Now this never came as a shocker, she had been suffering various health issues for a few years. Still last August she was diagnosed with a laundry list of things including two forms of Cancer.

We all thought the same thing, it was not a matter of if. It was simply a matter of when.

Even my mom held no delusions about this. Her relationship with her sister was strained at best but my mom helped and did what she could, but often during out monthly dinners I could see the thoughts in her eyes and hear it in her words.

My Aunt was on borrowed time.

After she passed we planned a memorial, not an traditional funeral since she was cremated, and we put her with the rest of the family.

Most of the close and extended family came out. Along with a number of family and friends. We then attended a luncheon after.

What I came to realize during all this was that a lot of these people were meeting me for the first time.

Several people wanted to know who I was since they did not recognize me and this was obviously a family event with very close friends. Most of them had all met before. Prior to transition.

It went fine, I caught up with a number of people and had several great conversations.

After it was over I simply put it in the back of my head and really did not even think about it until about late June, mid July?

My Mom and I had both been busy and with everything going on we missed some time for getting together.

When we finally had a chance to sit down and catch up, my mom brought up the topic of the Memorial.

While I was thinking the worse(why else would she be bringing it up), she surprised me with the opposite.

She mentioned to me that since the Memorial she had caught up with a number of people who had attended.

They caught her off guard by bringing up the topic of me.

Across the board they all said the same thing.

"Oh my goodness, she is amazing! She is beautiful, funny, and personable! We like her a lot."

Even the few of those who where not initially enthusiastic about the news of my function, were surprised and changed their tune about it.

My mom was beaming as she told me this. She knows how hard it was for me to do everything that I did. How many people could not accept it and the friends or family that I had lost over it.

She even told me about catching up with her Priest(Catholic) and his continued gushing about me. I had completely forgotten it had happened at the Memorial but my mom had introduced me to him while there.

He took one look at me and said the following to my parents "Wow! You have a very beautiful daughter!"

He looked at me "Your parents must be so proud. How many kids do you have?"

I laughed "I am sorry I do not have any at this point."

"Oh but you are young, you have plenty of time. Are you married?"

Again I laughed "No, I am not right now." (If only he knew I was a 38 year old Trans Woman who cannot have kids).

"Really? I cannot imagine a beautiful girl like yourself being single for long."

He turned to my parents "You did a really good job with this one."

I spoke up from the side with a twinkle and a smirk "I try not to tell them that otherwise it goes right to their heads. Then they are impossible to deal with."

He laughed at it and my parents just smiled. It was nice to see my Dad actually laughing a bit.

He caught up with my mom at church later to see if I had met anyone yet and if I had not to invite me to one of the singles events at the church. My mom just chuckled about the whole thing.

{I should point out that he is not your typical droll Catholic Priest. He is engaging, funny, a bit evangelistic in his delivery and really likes to connect to his audience. I can see why my parents like him so much. If I was not an Atheist I would want a priest like him at my church.

After my mom related it all She looked at me and said this:

"I am so proud of you. You have become yourself and not only do I see it so is the rest of the world. I was not expecting all those people to comment like they did, but they did. They are seeing what I am seeing. An amazing woman worth knowing."

I wanted to cry. As much as all the positive comments and praise are wonderful to hear. What meant more to me was seeing my mom happy and proud of me. All I ever wanted was to by myself and to have others on board and telling my parents how much they think of me means more than anything anyone can say directly to me.

It is things like this that remind me at times that all this was worth it.