Thread by @homemadeguitars

We did visitation the old way.
Her body died at 2:15 AM. I texted Rhonda immediately, and in about ten minutes she was here.
After a while she went back home. At about 6:00 AM I did two blast messages, one to people from my phone, one from hers.

2. We told officialdom that we'd be keeping her for a few hours, and I invited those who were able, and wished, to come see her.
The country folk all came, the commercial farm family and the others, some from the Humane Society, some from the band, some here and there.

3. Everyone who came had stories of things Gloria had done for them, for their friends, for some animal - Gloria did for others. As a matter of course. That's what you do.
You don't ask for back. You do it because you can.
Gloria.

4. And all agreed that Gloria didn't change her mind on anybody's say so.
She might decide she'd been mistaken, change her own mind, but nobody else did it. Certainly not me.

5. When her friend F woke up to find her husband dead beside her, she called Gloria.
Before 911.
She came today.
She hasn't even known. It was such a whirlwind flight we couldn't get hold of her.
December 2nd. Diagnosis. Prognosis. Today.

6. I texted her out of Gloria's contacts. First notice, last goodbye.
Now the funeral home is here. She is going straight to the crematory.
By tomorrow her carbon will be in the atmosphere, her hydrogen, her life elements, and soon I will receive the rocks and metal as ashes.

7. There will be a memorial service at Todd's Chapel in Ray County, MO, between Excelsior Springs and Richmond, probably, as it looks today, on January 7th. This will be a Christian format service, with a long time personal friend of ours, a Methodist lay minister, officiating.

8. At some later date, probably influenced by the ebb and flow of pandemic from this day forward, we will have a band based, rock and roll, blues, country and western memorial at the VFW in Lexington, MO, and close the night with
G L O R I A Glo-o-o-ria!
I'll let you know.