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I have no idea what my uncles family will be planning...but the Battle Hymn would seem an appropriate song for the end of a memorial or wake service, for a vet, especially one who fought in a war...

My one cousin,(not the deceaseds sons, but my other cousin, related to the family) has promised that he will give me a full resume of the wake and the funeral..this cousin is almost like my brother, as he is the son of my aunt and uncle who lived downstairs of me when we were all growing up together....there was me and my little brother, and my two boy cousins downstairs...it was like having 3 brothers....and almost like having two sets of parents, we were all so close...

But this uncle who died, lived a few miles from us...we were really a big happy family....aunts, uncles, kids, grandkids, grandma and grandpa...I was just looking some old family photos this morning, and came across pics of a big family picnic out at some lake when I was around 12...

There all of us kids were, with our parents, and the whole extended family of that, my growing up time...there were 16 of us in that big happy extended family, and now there are only 6 left...(of course, that not counting me or my cousins kids and spouses-just us in our growin up years)...but there was one pic, taken around 1958 or so, and there are all us kids, 7 of us, in our bathing suits, wearing swim goggles, and swim fins, and making funny faces for the pics....acting just like kids...and in the background is our grandmother, just beaming at her brood of grandkids...

And so, some lives end, and yet, there is always new life bursting forth....

I know grandma and grandpa have welcomed my uncle home, and especially he has seen his daughter and his grandson, who never got the chance to be born...and for my Uncle, I am happy, that he has gone on, to be with those he loved...

But the tears still flow, concerned for my aunt and for their boys...they must now go on alone...

But I agee, that Battle Hymn would be so appropriate for one who has served his country, in the military...

Doing the math, it would appear that we both will hit the double-nickle + one sometime this year...sometimes I wonder if I were ever really twelve years of age - man, where has the time flown?

Over the years in our family, we've noticed that so very often when one of us leaves this earth, soon before or soon thereafter, will be born another to take the departed's place. Has this happened in any other's family?

Back after the dreaded grocery run. ;-)