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From: Kathy Du Bois <[log in to unmask]>
HI Guys,
        Well, I had my first ride in a hearse yesterday.  It wasn’t too bad and like everybody was telling me, it least I was riding in the front and not the back, which is a very important distinction to make.  We had a funeral, of course, yesterday, and I was just going to stay back and help the ladies get the reception ready, but Greg insisted that I come to the committal service and so there I was, being sandwiched between the funeral director and Greg.  He was riding in the hearse, so I had to too.  It was interesting
        Let’s see, we talked about different types of funeral services from the atheist to the Universalist Unitarian s.  We also talked about cremation.  Did you know that more than fiftey per cent of the bodies in Maine are cremated now?  Cremation is the in thing, especially in the blue states.  I learned that the red states still prefer to bury a body, but the people in the blue states prefer cremation.  He also told us that more than twenty per cent of his clients now don’t want any type of service at all.  They just want the body cremated and be done with it.  That statistic really shocked me.  I didn’t realize that it was so high and, evidently, growing. 
        Yes, my first ride in a hearse was very interesting.

        I should probably share with you a bit about the lady who died, since her passing itself was so incredible.  She was 84 years old and had been suffering with heart trouble for quite some time.  She loved music, so when her daughter knew that she would be passing in hours, she asked Greg and me to come and sing her into glory.  We were singing the hymn, “The Old Rugged Cross,” and when we got to the line, “I will cling to the old rugged cross and exchange it some day for a crown,” she slipped away, right on cue, very peacefully.  It was God’s timing, of course, but, for some reason, that kind of thing just always blows me away. 
Kathy