Does time heal all wounds?

The jacaranda trees in my neighborhood are in full bloom:

The past few days have been super busy.

Thursday I went to an art journal class given by artist Jacki Long.

I didn't take any pictures, but I will soon.

It was a productive day.

Jacki took great pictures of everyone's work. You can see them at her blog here:

http://jackilong.blogspot.com/2018/05/day-2122-not-plain-jane.html






After work Thursday night I went to a viewing, and a funeral Friday, for Annette, a family friend.

We used to sing together in a choir along with my mom, maybe 20 years ago.


I had only just learned the night before, of her passing.


The service was held at a church, in the next neighborhood over.

They haven't even built a church yet, they use their recreation room:

This is what the interior looks like.

(This is not our funeral. The funeral was packed.)




The music was provided by the choir director of that old choir we were all in.

(I forgot to invite him to my moms funeral, in all the chaos... I still feel bad about it.)

Annette had moved to this church when it was built about 12 years ago.
I had not seen her since.

I felt tremendous guilt for not going to see her when she was ill.




The young pastor was friends with my brother in high school.

He would have been at my own mom's funeral but he was out of town.

I also have not seen him in many years...



I stopped by their church office before the service. I wanted to see how they ran things...

Recently I have been thinking of going to this church on Sundays.

Things are not the same at the old church (where I work) since Mom passed...

She left some huge shoes to fill.

The receptionist's family took Sunday School lessons from my Mom, and shared a memory about her.




Suddenly, the pastor came up with a high school yearbook, with my brother in it.




It was all too much!


I cried  throughout the service.

Almost as much as Annette's immediate family!

I was a little embarrassed!



However, in the end it was a very powerful experience.




The church I work at is really huge, both in amount of people and the size of the building.

It can be overwhelming sometimes.






I felt a strong connection to the service in the other church's small hall.

It brought up a lot of emotions I didn't know I was repressing, since Mom's passing.

Or even older ones than that...

I'll be very happy to return there again very soon!



I don't like a lot of drama.

Lately I've been feeling like I'm in some kind of Jane Austen book!






Here's a picture of my garden that I was saving for the right kind of story.





This is the trellis I made last year, to go around my pond statue:

I made it with three $15 cheap garden stake - type trellis that I stained.



Back view, with the piece laying across the top:

(And Sam the Ham.)





Here it is today: