a fitting send-off

A unique funeral for a unique individual.

Instead of the wearing black pins people usually wore at funerals, my sister, cousins-in-law, my aunt's co-teacher and I made bear-pins using purple ribbons (note: my aunt requested the color purple to be used at her wake) and cut-out bear foams (note: she loved to collect anything with bears on it), and encouraged everyone at my aunt's funeral to wear them.

Since my aunt was a kid at heart, we asked everyone to write notes for my aunt. The notes were written using crayons (of course) and were tied to 25 white balloons. On my signal (I was the self-appointed photographer), family and friends released the balloons and watched some of them.... get caught in the branches of the nearby tree. In the meantime, while everyone was looking up at the balloons, my usual lampa self tried to get good shots of the balloons... and sprained my foot in the process (long embarrassing story).

Ignoring my painful sprain, I was still able to take a few nice pictures of my nephews and the young inaanaks of my aunt as they played in the garden. Even took a picture of the signboard in the garden that my 3-year-old nephew Curt said he saw my aunt fixing on the first night of her passing.

All in all, it was a good send-off, despite the rain, the jeep of her co-teacher breaking down as she was leaving UP to go to the crematorium, and my stupidity a.k.a. my sprained foot.