My grandmother's funeral was perfect. Just the right mix of poignancy and humor. The minister who did the service was a nice guy who put together a warm speech, one of those funeral parlor speeches based on information that Dad gave him. After that my brother Hemingway (that's a lousy pseudonym. I am changing his name to Bottle Rocket now) got up and read a wonderful poem he'd written, that captured her essence. The last line really broke me up, and I finally got to cry real tears for my Grandma.

We buried her with a locket and lots of her favorite flowers, and then enjoyed a lunch reception at Quilty's house. We went through photo albums and discussed her side of the family.

She was a farmer's daughter from Maryland, from an old New England family, as whitebread as they come. She was charming, pretty, fragile and good-humored. She had an older brother and two younger sisters, all of whom went to Ivy League schools (the brother eventually quitting his theological studies after concluding that the Jesus story was just a fable made up "by a bunch of Jews"). She had a baby sister who died after drinking Lysol. After the Lysol incident, her mother became a recluse, never leaving the house gain til she died.

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