[El Gato]

It was a good thing there were no other grieving families in the funeral home that night of her wake. They might have been scandalized because we got really raucous with laughing and visiting with old friends of the family.

Not that unusual. The funeral events of my father, who had the Big A, and my father-in-law, who did not, were like that. Father in law had a series of mini-strokes, which produce some, but not all, of the same symptoms. My father in law never had the personalities changes that are so typical with Alzheimer's. He slept a lot, but chuckled in his sleep, and chuckled when awake, both when he was lucid, and when he wasn't. But he'd always chuckled a lot.

My FiL's funeral was in February. The other funeral I went to this past year was not like that at all. My sister in law, 46, with two kids still in high school, died in November of a very aggressive renal cancer. About two months from first symptoms til she died, and not a pleasant two months either, especialy the second month.

[SuziQ]

Yeah, it's tough when it's younger folks. We had a friend in his early 50's who went in for routine disc surgery. Surgeon nicked an artery, Jerry bled to death, and went into cardiac arrest before they could correct it. Needless to say, THAT was a tough funeral, and made even tougher for us because this man's first wife had died 10 years ago after a five year battle with cancer. Their youngest child never even knew her mother as anything but ill. Fortunately Jerry's second wife is a gem, and his kids love her. Sadly, her first husband had died from cancer, so she was shell shocked at the funeral.

Thankfully, they have all done well, and she is a proud mother of three fine young adults. What's really interesting is that the youngest daughter, who spent her growing up years with the second wife has begun to look like her in many ways.