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Today was the visitation
Jun. 19th, 2005 09:44 pmIt went amazingly well, there were no real major emotional breakdowns. Lots of stories and laughter. It was very startling to see Brian, he aged 10-15 years in one week. He lost his hair, he was looking very sunken and sallow. He did not look at all like the man that I saw a week ago. Russ and others said that it actually helped them that he didn't look like what they remembered him as, I hope that continues to hold true.
I have to give kudos to the funeral home, they did a great job of taking care of him and preparing the visitation.
Met lots of people whom I will not remember, but the best thing was that Brian's widow, Clare, made it to the visitation. The priest came in and they had a Vespers service, not being Catholic I didn't do much except follow along in the 'program book' while everyone else dutifully read out the proper responses. I did join in singing a hymn, Abide With Me, as I knew the song quite well. I would have liked to have properly sung the bass line, but it was a 'one note fits all' type of singing and the program book didn't have the sheet music.
Russ liked my singing, that was cool.
Afterwards, lots more mingling. I chatted with the priest a bit, he's a pretty cool dude. Older guy, movie junkie, Britcom addict ('Allo 'Allo, Vicar of Dibley, Yes Minister, My War) and has bought a few collections on DVD. Doesn't like action flicks, enjoys South American flicks. I was tempted to ask him about Like Water For Chocolate, but thought that might be beyond the realm of good taste.
We then reassembled at the Family Homestead ™ for pizza and conversation. Lots of laughing, the tension of a few days ago pretty well gone. Planning for Monday's Mass and graveside service, I'm going to be a pallbearer, which adds the eternal pressure of "don't fuck up and drop the body". Clare is planning to attend, she definitely looks like she's improving. She went back to the hospital shortly after the end of the Vespers.
One annoyance carrying over from yesterday. We went down to breakfast this AM and took our copy of the Sunday edition of Plain Dealer. There was the obit article on Brian McMillan, above the fold, in the corner. No picture. I busted hump trying to get that to the paper, the free wireless at the hotel was a hopeless bottleneck with speeds frequently dropping to below 10kb/s. Email wasn't viable with that kind of bandwidth with it being a 4Mb jpeg, so I ended up installing Net Zero, dialing in to the local point, and FTPing the photo to my web site then sending the URL to the reporter. Theoretically he should have been able to take it down, one thing is for sure is that he never called to say he had any problems downloading it.
It took a good 45 minutes to upload it to my web site at approx 20kb/s.
We don't know why the picture wasn't printed, especially since another obit on the same page had THREE photos of the same guy. I think they could easily have either reduced those or eliminated one altogether to get another person's photo in.
Sigh.
I have to give kudos to the funeral home, they did a great job of taking care of him and preparing the visitation.
Met lots of people whom I will not remember, but the best thing was that Brian's widow, Clare, made it to the visitation. The priest came in and they had a Vespers service, not being Catholic I didn't do much except follow along in the 'program book' while everyone else dutifully read out the proper responses. I did join in singing a hymn, Abide With Me, as I knew the song quite well. I would have liked to have properly sung the bass line, but it was a 'one note fits all' type of singing and the program book didn't have the sheet music.
Russ liked my singing, that was cool.
Afterwards, lots more mingling. I chatted with the priest a bit, he's a pretty cool dude. Older guy, movie junkie, Britcom addict ('Allo 'Allo, Vicar of Dibley, Yes Minister, My War) and has bought a few collections on DVD. Doesn't like action flicks, enjoys South American flicks. I was tempted to ask him about Like Water For Chocolate, but thought that might be beyond the realm of good taste.
We then reassembled at the Family Homestead ™ for pizza and conversation. Lots of laughing, the tension of a few days ago pretty well gone. Planning for Monday's Mass and graveside service, I'm going to be a pallbearer, which adds the eternal pressure of "don't fuck up and drop the body". Clare is planning to attend, she definitely looks like she's improving. She went back to the hospital shortly after the end of the Vespers.
One annoyance carrying over from yesterday. We went down to breakfast this AM and took our copy of the Sunday edition of Plain Dealer. There was the obit article on Brian McMillan, above the fold, in the corner. No picture. I busted hump trying to get that to the paper, the free wireless at the hotel was a hopeless bottleneck with speeds frequently dropping to below 10kb/s. Email wasn't viable with that kind of bandwidth with it being a 4Mb jpeg, so I ended up installing Net Zero, dialing in to the local point, and FTPing the photo to my web site then sending the URL to the reporter. Theoretically he should have been able to take it down, one thing is for sure is that he never called to say he had any problems downloading it.
It took a good 45 minutes to upload it to my web site at approx 20kb/s.
We don't know why the picture wasn't printed, especially since another obit on the same page had THREE photos of the same guy. I think they could easily have either reduced those or eliminated one altogether to get another person's photo in.
Sigh.
