Returned from Hattiesburg

2024-10-17

Just Returned from Hattiesburg, Mississippi where I attended my late cousin's funeral. The trip was long and arduous simply for the milage and that was all. I pulled into Hattiesburg around 5 pm and called my cousin to get some directions. She directed me to the home of her late parents, my beloved Bill and Glenda Gore and the Air B&B their home had become.

Little did I know that I was both being rescued from a strange place and offered a luxurious place to sleep as well. I've never been rescued in such a exquisite manner before. They had a place for the family and friends to meet which didn't entail everyone getting a hotel. I slept like a log and arose the next moring ready to hit the ground running.

The affair was at once somber and celebratory of her life and legacy and not entirely without a bit of friction and social drama seondary to behaviors witnessed ... but that's all part of being human.

My other two cousins were in and out of grief and socializing at the wake. The tears flowed and would ebb then return later. I felt a sense of emotional support and that their tears were not to be endured but to be understood. Episodic as it was the grief was palpable and I learned things about my late cousin I never knew.

I learned a lot of things about my kin the Gore clan. I reminisced about moments with my late loved ones gone on before as though it were yesterday. I viewed the first back yard in which I ever truly played. This was one of the most meaningful and personally satisfying trips I've ever made. When you are related to others it is important to know something about them. Understanding what they feel is important and their attitudes towards life and living.

I told them that I felt like I was family and they said I always was. This certainly how they always treated me. I feel like I know them all more and am left wishing I had spent more time with my two cousins who are now passed. Distance is a poor excuse for absence. I will now endeavor to be there for them whenever it is possible. I miss you Bill, Glenda, Greg and Sherrie. I am sorry we were separated by such distance.