When I was going to school in Fullerton, and living in Brea, we went to Mass many times at St. Joseph's in Placentia. However, since we moved south about 14 years ago, I've only been back up to St. Joseph's three times: for my wedding, for my first daughter's baptism and for my great-aunt's funeral, which was yesterday. My aunt Jeanne died last weekend at the age of 90, and yesterday we laid her to rest. Like every funeral I've ever attended, it seemed quite surreal. Another family member is no longer with us, and no matter how long a life she lived, or how "natural" her death was, or how expected the loss was, it just never seems real when we bury someone we know. It also doesn't seem real to walk through the cemetary and look at all the headstones of people we knew and loved: my grandfather, my uncle, a great-aunt and great-uncle, my cousin's husband, my uncle's mother. I still remember them like they were with me yesterday, as if the photos in my album have just been developed, even though the dates on the stones seem very long ago: 1993, 1998, 1999. Someday, I will be beneath one of those stones, and the year of my death will seem like ages and ages ago. I hope the people I leave behind remember me as if we were together just moments ago. Until then, I will try to spend more time with them, to cement those memories and keep them strong until the last of the people I knew are also gone.
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