Sep 26 - viewing

I have to confess that I thought that a viewing would be a bad idea, however, Jeffrey and Sara wanted to remember Alexander other than on a respirator. I didn't think that I could say this, but he looked peaceful. He looked like he was sleeping.

There weren't many visitors -- a few friends of Jeffrey and Sara and two of ours (Leonas and Pam) -- but that was always the intent. Sara only let their very close friends know about the viewing. Their friends Melissa and Frank were there for the duration. I arrived at 1:30, taking longer to get their from our hotel than I'd thought, and stayed until almost 4pm.

Pam went over to Jeffrey's and saw Sandy, who didn't go to the viewing. Sandy was looking after Emma. Shortly after I got back to the house, Sheryl arrived and then much later, after 7pm, Stef, Aaron and Lauren. The house hopped with the kids playing until around 9pm when most of us had left. David stayed behind, sleeping at Jeffrey's.

Dinner was catch-as-catch can. A neighbor had brought over hoagies/subs; there was pizza from the prior night's donation; I went over to Giant and picked up a couple of rotisserie chickens; dinner was spread over several hours.

We again gave Jeffrey's wireless modem a workout. With smartphones and laptops it mostly did its job, but Jeffrey did have to re-boot it once. It was kind of funny in a way -- at one point many of us are sitting around, laptopping ... modem has problems -- look around again and everyone is using their smartphone.

Quiet conversation, in as much as we could hear over Chase, Lauren and Emma, multi-tasking with PC's, jeffrey assembling photos of Alex, living-room, kitchen, sitting outside ... generally subdued but not always.

The Memorial Service is tomorrow, followed by a get-together at Jeffrey's & Sara's. David's intent is to leave soon after, needing to get back to his store. The rest of us will likely leave Thursday morning. I think that Susan is coming back, not Liz, but I'm not 100% sure at this point.

Stef and Aaron were here until noon, then headed off to do some shopping and having dinner with friends. Sara's off, taking Emma to school; Jeffrey is playing Diablo with Chase; Sandy and Sheryl are here at the kitchen table with me, talking about kitchen renos; David's been doing some things on the PC ... life is somewhat getting back to a new normal.

Onward.