11th Day of Empty Nesting...Good Bye

Darlene's funeral was today.  It was time to have lunch with the family and visit with old friends.  Time to acknowledge the loss and cry together.

During the funeral service, Heaven opened up and POURED!  At first I thought it was the sound of the a/c, but it got louder and louder, and soon it was a roar not to be mistaken.  We could see solid sheets of water pouring down the outside of the stained glass windows.

Some people might think rain is the perfect weather for a funeral because the gloom of the weather matches the gloomy mood of the assembly.  But I think it's perfect because rain is my favorite weather.  It was Darlene's favorite weather, too.  The last time I saw her we sat in her room and watched the rain out the window.  I turned to her and said, "I hope it rains in Heaven."  A delighted look came to her eyes and she smiled, "I never thought about that, but I hope it does, too!"

So it rained.  One of the granddaughters got up and talked about how she will think of her grandmother every time she sees the rainbow.  Then it stopped, and by the time we got outside, things were clearing right up.

We got in the procession for the 35-mile drive to the cemetery where Darlene was going to be buried next to her grandparents and her middle son, and we worried about slogging through the mud at the cemetery, but as we got closer we could see that the rain had not extended that far away.  So sighs of relief all around.

As we drove around a bend I happened to look off toward the direction from which we had come.  And waaay back there, over in a distant corner of the sky....a rainbow glowed.