We headed out early Sunday a.m. to drive to El Paso for Bill Cardon's funeral service. The plan was to drive to Mesa and attend church with Marcia - my old college roomie. The problem was two-fold, however. First of all, we did not factor in the the fact that Arizona does not change their time. Like smart people, they keep the time the same always!! We might still have made it for the 11:30 a.m. Sacrament meeting, but Dad got pulled over for going too fast once we crossed the Arizona border. Fortunately he got off with a warning! So we went to a 1 p.m. Sacrament meeting that was pretty cool. Pres. and Sister Udall reported on their mission as temple presidents in Paraguay. Dad especially enjoyed hearing about the early work in the Paraguay mission when Pres. Udall had gone there in 1956. At that time the mission included Peru!
Afterwards we enjoyed a lovely lunch with Marcia, Dea, and Dea's cousin. It put us behind an hour, but it was worth it!! And Marcia sent us off with a bag full of homemade chocolate chip cookies that actually rival Donna's! (They will figure into the story later on!!)We got to El Paso about 10:30 at night and stayed at Doug and V.J.'s house. They were out of town, but their two cats kept us company!!
The funeral service for Bill was very nice - a fitting tribute to such a fine man. The chapel was full to overflowing - many came to pay their respects. Joe, Marjorie's oldest son, spoke, as did Harry F. Joe went over a lot of history that I was not aware of, which was nice. Funerals are often very illuminating! Harry's talk was great too - he did a wonderful job of personalizing Bill's life and the lessons we can all learn from it.Dawn's nephew Travis played a medley on the viola which was beautiful, and a cousin of Bill's sang beautifully too.
We went in a long cortege to Ft. Bliss National Cemetery. The service was lovely - the military does do some things very well. Taps was played, and Marjorie received the flag covering Bill's coffin. Many paid their respects to Marjorie after the dedication, and the little kids were kind of running around. Isla wanted her mom, but Dawn was trying to visit with some people, so I had Noah get the leftover chocolate chip cookies from the car - and Isla was content to stay with Noah. The power of a good homemade cookie!!
Dawn with her brothers Bill and Shon and her nephew Travis.Of course the ward did a great luncheon afterwards - ham and funeral potatoes - but these funeral potatoes has a Southwestern flair that was yummy. And the dessert selection was impressive - mint brownies, sugar cookies, rice pudding, apple pie and Texas sheet cake, of course.
There were framed photos from Bill's life on each table, and Travis had done a great slideshow. I should have taken more photos, but I was busy eating!! (This trip has done nothing for my weight loss plan!!)
We enjoyed visiting with the many family members who were there after the luncheon. The Cardon family is a large one - I had things fairly straight at one point, but I think I've forgotten some faces and names by now!! It is obvious that Marjorie has lots of love and support as she faces the days ahead.
Before heading out to Tucson - where we planned to spend the night with the Hamills - we had dinner with Doug. V.J. was still in Utah, but we enjoyed playing "catch-up" with Doug. And I finally got to have some sopapillas!!
We got to Tucson close to 11 p.m. Dave, who has to get up early for work, was already in bed, but we had a nice visit with Diane.
And the next morning we had some more visiting. Dad and I were thinking that we could meander our way across the country, staying with friends, for quite a spell before we ran out of friends and family!!
We pulled into Monrovia around 5:30 p.m. after a stop at the job site Dad is working on in Claremont. We have spent the better part of the last 3 days in the car - it's a good thing we all like each other!! It was not so bad - we had food - only had to stop 3 times for gas - and lots of NPR podcasts to listen too. My fave was listening to and singing along with the Christmas carols.
There were lots of beautiful flowers at the funeral, and here is a photo of the ones we sent to Marjorie. She is enjoying them at home.
It's back to work and getting ready to leave on Saturday for DC!! The fun never stops around here does it??
We will certainly miss Bill and his kindly demeanor. Christmas just won't be the same without him. For one thing, who will help Harry finish his puzzle?? But we do have some wonderful memories to reflect on.
