On life and death in a small town.

I traveled to Iowa this week for my Grandmother's funeral. Lest this post come off as irreverent, you should know I hold my Grandmother, and all of my family, in the highest esteem. Grandma Betty had been sick for several year with Alzheimer's. It had been mostly downhill since my wedding almost four years ago. When those you love are sick enough not to be able to swallow even pureed food or water or breathe, it's hard to know what to wish for. Well, celebrating my Grandma's long and vibrant life was amazing. It's hard to imagine life without her - I've never spent time in Marcus without here there - and her memory will live on. And in celebrating her life, her love for her family and her passions, I even got to indulge a few of my own.

I love the Midwest. Garrison Keillor seems to hit it right on the head, and I couldn't help but think of his idealized view of Midwesterners the whole week through. Life is so much easier there, you hop right off the plane, meet your brother in the terminal, get the rental car and head home. They're even nice to you at the Taco John's. And you can't get within a 35-mile radius of my population-1000 old hometown without seeing someone you know. And when you get there, people really, truly, genuinely want to know how you are. They have a vested interest - they've known your family from years and can recall the day you were born.

I shook hands without 300 people who came to the funeral home to express their sympathies. Each had special memories of my Grandmother and our family. Friends, family members, all together, all mourning and all remembering Grandma from better days. We set up pictures of her from the 1930s on - and people who could recall her from all those years. These are ordinary people, sharing imtimate and personal details often with a smile, and sometimes with a tear.

It was 30 degrees the morning of the funeral. My cheeks burned from the cold when I walked across town to the chuch to light a candle several hours before the 10:30 am service. The sun shone through the stained glass windows, and even though there were inches of snow on the ground (the most, in fact, in over 30 years) there was a certain warmth. Especially when we had a luncheon post-funeral in the basement of the church.

So many people important and special to my life were there --- the band director/ordained Catholic deacon who married my husband and me, my dad's aunts, uncles and cousins, a dear high school friend who drove 3.5 hours to be there from the Des Moines area. We ate ham sandwiches on white buns (with margarine, oleo as it's called there) and passed fruit salads, potato salads and baked goods. If you measure a person's life in love and laughter, I'd say this particular luncheon was a fitting tribute.

At my parents' house there were casseroles, brownines, meat and cheese trays, sympathy cards, flower, plants, carmel pecan rolls, flowers, beer brought by friends and more flowers. We sat there with Grandpa, sharing our love and support during what was a tough week. (He'd lost his sister the previous week and he turned 82 on Wednesday. I think all those events in combination remind you of your own mortality.)

We took flowers to shut-ins the day after the funeral. Then Mom and I drove to Cherokee, the count of seat of our county. There we went to a new little coffee shop and a kitchen speciality shop and a little place that sold purses. These are folks who don't need Fendi. If it holds there debit card from Farmers Savings Bank, it's good enough. We ate at the Bowling Alley, and the food was good and fresh and tasty and by my standards, inexpensive. These are the valuable lessons of where I grew up: because it's easy doesn't mean it sucks. Because it's convenient, it doesn't mean it's a cop out.

I don't have any desire to live in my hometown. But I do have a certain reverence for it. I've seen the way communities can act with kindness. For example, one of the richest guys in town winters in Arizona. When a family's house burned a couple of weeks ago, he volunteered his place. I'm sure there's no rental agreement or expectation, just kindness. I know there are more sides to the story; the lack of anonymitiy and the judgement of small-town folks. But largely it's a pretty amazing place. That's what I learned this week. A lesson in kindness and community. At the heart of it, I gues that's the lesson of life in a small town.