Bregon's First Funeral

Last Thursday, for whatever reason, Bregon and I decided that we needed to go and see a friend of ours who worked at a little hair-care place in the mall in Bossier. We packed up the trio, loaded up the car and made our way to the mall.

Once we got there, we were very surprised as our friend wasn't in the shop. I just figured that he had taken off early as we had a small get-together planned for later that evening. I didn't think anything of it really as my triplets were busy hair pulling and trying to nip at each other's elbows.

Later that day, we waited and waited for him to come by the house. My husband and he were supposed to ride together to the gathering so that Danny didn't have to drive downtown by himself. He never made it to my house.

That night, I received a phone call from a friend of ours who had been working with him at the shop who had found out that Danny had been killed in a car accident late that afternoon. Bregon had been sitting with me on the couch when the phone rang and he had over-heard the entire conversation.

Poor Bregon, he has never really had anyone that he was close to die before. Danny had always been there for as long as Bregon could remember. My poor little guy and I shared a few tears together there on my living room couch.

Then I had to call my husband and let him know what happened so that he could let our friends from out of town know before the gathering broke up for the evening. In a way, I was really glad that they were all together when they found out.

Bregon sat with me while I made a list of all of the people we needed to contact that would want to know what happened. Together, we talked about our fondest memories of our dear friend. He even ran and got us some toilet paper so that we could wipe our tears away.

Over the weekend, we had friends come in from all over the place. We had large group lunches and arranged coffee dates with everyone. We traded stories of our friends over the years and reminisced about how much he had touched all of our lives and the differences that he had made in them.

This morning, Bregon made the decision to attend his first funeral. Our friend was Catholic, so he had mass said for him today. Bregon very carefully picked out what he would wear. He was such a little adult about everything. He even thought to take his hankie (which had been bought as a camp-necessity for boy scouts and had never been used, oddly enough.)

He did very well during the service. He was very discreet for a 12 year old. He even offered to share his hankie with me when I was sad, but I had come prepared as well.

I am not sure what he thought of everything, but he did seem to enjoy seeing all of our old friends. It's odd how people seem to ban together when their friends pass away, but I think it somehow does make us stronger.

The only problem I had with Bregon happened after the funeral when he grew tired of talking to everyone out front afterwards. I looked up, and found that he had taken to climbing a little tree out in front of the church. I suppose if that's the worst of it, I am very fortunate!

He didn't even seem to mind being told that the tree was off limits. He very happily decided to go inside and visit at the reception hall instead. Hopefully, he will not get very much practice at how to behave at funerals!