I hate it when a preacher who has never met anyone in the family and doesn’t even bother to learn how to pronounce the name of the deceased gets brought in for the service. How hard is it to remember “Dorothy?” It only gets worse when said preacher, however well intentioned, takes it upon himself to ignore the reason why he was brought in (I suppose he had some fiduciary arrangement with the funeral home) and elects to treat the mourners as a captive audience for his own brand of evangelism.
I elected not to point out that the story of Jesus and the prostitute might not have been appropriate for the situation and that it did not even become part of the written cannon until more than 600 years after Jesus was crucified. I was proud of myself for showing such restraint. The one good point was that I was too pissed to grieve at the moment.
After the graveside portion of the service concluded, we all went to the furniture store where Kay works to have a final meal together. Her boss provided lots of food and told us to use the store, which is closed on Mondays, as a house. Again, the kindness was touching.
We soon began disbursing back to the various directions from which we had descended on Alamogordo. Suna and I headed north to the Three Rivers Petroglyph Site—where ancient Jornada Mogollons scratched ritual drawings on rocks for almost 400 years. Many of the petroglyphs are truly astounding, if difficult to photograph. (The best of the pictures I took will be posted on Facebook soon.)
The solitude and quietness of the site were what I needed to heal a little bit, not to mention the mile-long hike in the mountains. But it was not enough for me to feel up to seeing a couple of Suna’s friends who live in Las Cruces. I had been looking forward to it. After all, this is the first time in more than 10 years I’ve been in New Mexico. But I was emotionally exhausted. I pulled back into the RV park after purchasing some pistachio products from a store that features the “world’s largest pistachio” and promptly fell asleep watching Monday Night Football.
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