Family reunions

This trip to Wales, my third this year, was to arrange and attend my mother's funeral. My mother and I had pre-arranged her funeral two years ago, when she was first diagnosed with inoperable cancer. I encourage others to do the same, especially when your end-of-life can be somewhat anticipated. It certainly relieved family members of the burden of lots of planning. I was still somewhat surprised by the number of things that needed to be dealt with, but the family worked together to get things done.

For Greg and I, this is our first visit to Wales in August, in summer. Well, it's certainly given us a new appreciation for Canadian summers. Let's just say the greenery is so lush in Wales as it rains often!

On the day before the funeral, one of the first few dry days we experienced, we walked part of the Wales Coast Path in my hometown of Barry.

This stretch of coastline is all pebbles and cliff-face

I may have boasted about this before, but Wales is the first country in the world to establish a public coastal path around the entire coast.

A section of the 870 miles (1392 kms) of coastal paths

The day before the funeral, there was a short service to receive my mother into the care of the Roman Catholic church. Afterwards, we met with some of the family who had travelled from England and were staying at a hotel overnight. As we walked into the hotel, we saw this beautiful rainbow. We're used to seeing rainbows over Niagara Falls, where we live, but this was a particularly cheery sight after a somewhat solemn event.

For the funeral itself, the weather was dry before and after the mass, but during the mass it rained heavily. As we were finishing up at the cemetery, it again started to rain a little. Great timing in an otherwise wet week.

If you look back at the June 1st post of my mother's 93rd birthday celebrations, you'll see I mention that families unfortunately often only gather for weddings and funerals. Although her birthday party was an exception to that, I did see family members at her funeral who I hadn't seen in a long time. From my father's side of the family, I saw seven cousins representing three of his sisters and his brother. The photo below is of an aunt and four cousins. This is the first time I'd seen these cousins in more than 40 years. It's one of the negatives of moving so far away from family in my younger years.

So, when will we next return, now that my parents and only sibling have passed away? I don't know the answer to that. Let's hope it's not just for weddings and funerals. Perhaps we'll combine a house and pet sit in Britain with family visits? It's certainly an option.

We'll be returning to Canada in two days, and a week after that we're off to Cuba for a week's sun and fun with friends. We're looking forward to it. I'll be internet-free there, but maybe I'll post when I return.