Camping for Halloween - Pismo Coast Village and Lunch with the Cousins

    I know! I know! I have not done the second part of my post regarding the funeral for my brother in law Sean. I will, because it was one of the most amazing and special funerals I've ever attended. 

    Since his passing on August 4th, I have been spending the nights with my sister. She has never been alone, from living with our parents she went to live with her husband and I knew it was going to be difficult for her to be alone, especially in the beginning. 

    So my routine since then has been that I wake up at her home around 5:45 a.m. and get dressed and head to my house which is probably four blocks away. I do my normal morning routine and since I work from home and have since Covid began, I put in my eight hours of work. After work I spend a bit of time with my mom and then head over to Lisa's house where we have dinner, talk about the day, on Monday's we go to Grief Share, a grief therapy group that meets for two hours, then we start the routine all over again the next morning.

    Lisa and Sean LOVED camping! It was their greatest passion, after their children and grandchildren. They own a beautiful 5th Wheel motor home which they store at the coast and when they want to go camping, they make a reservation and the RV park picks up their RV and moves it to the campsite they will be in, they set it all up and hook up the water, sewer and electricity, they just come in and organize the inside and relax. 

    They had an annual tradition of coming the week of Halloween as all the RV's are decorated for the holiday. Because of the popularity of the event it books up fast so they had made and paid for their reservations months ago. Lisa wanted to go ahead and come, I was not so sure. I felt it was too soon, but if she wanted to do it, then I was coming with her.

    We left on Friday morning and her son Sean Jr came by to see us off, he's such a great young man and I'm so proud of him. You can see by the smile on their faces how much they still hurt for their dad and husband.

    We always stop at TJ Maxx in Paso Robles to shop. Lisa doesn't really enjoy shopping and even less now that she is grieving, but she made the effort. We didn't buy much, but Lisa did buy me a beautiful coffee mug with Nutcrackers on it, I'll share that when I put up my Christmas decorations sometime in December.

    We headed to Pismo where we had lunch at The Sidewalk Cafe where we each had the most amazing Asian Salad. It was huge too, we actually had it that night for dinner and I still ended up throwing about 1/4 of it away. 

    We got to the campsite soon after and I was so worried that Lisa was going to be devastated seeing the RV and walking inside for the first time without Sean, but the people that were supposed to set up the sewer, water and electricity had done nothing and all the hoses and pipes were strewn about in the back of the RV! Lisa was LIVID!  I think it was a blessing in disguise, she was so focused on getting everything fixed that she didn't remember to pay attention to the fact that this was the first time she was back in the RV without Sean. Death sucks so much, this is such a hard time for her.

    After all that drama we decided to walk to the clubhouse and then to the small store next door where Lisa bought two beers and some pretzels and we headed to a small table where she and Sean used to go when they came together. We said a toast to Sean and sat there drinking our beer. We then realized that we are Arizona girls and we don't do beach weather well (it was cold) and we headed back to the RV.

Beer in a can in a brown paper bag. Sean's favorite beer would have been Bud Light but they were out of that so we had Michelob Ultra. It was a beautiful spot but way to cold to stay long with the wind blowing.

    We set everything up and organized ourselves and decided where we each were going to sleep and then we watched some TV and played some cards and finally decided to get some sleep as we had plans to go to lunch the next day with two cousins that live close by.

    The next morning we slept in for a bit and woke up and had coffee, we planned our day because we knew we were meeting our cousins Diana and Vera at 1pm for lunch. We ran a few errands and cleaned up some more and then met them for lunch at this lovely place, Marisol at the Cliffs Restaurant. You can see the ocean in the background in the picture below.

Enjoying a Jalapeno Melon Margarita with the cousins. My sister Lisa in front taking the photo. Left to Right is our cousin Diana, daughter to my dad's sister Leonor and Elvira aka Vera daughter to my dads brother Manuel, then me.

    We had such a great time, there was a lot of laughter, a few tears and many shared memories. 

    For dinner I had the Thai Chicken Lettuce Wraps, which were fabulous!

    Lisa had the bacon and eggs, the bacon looked really good, but she didn't share! 

Cousin Vera I believe had fish tacos with potatoes.

Cousin Vera deep in conversation.

    Cousin Diana had the nachos which she shared with us all and still had enough to take home!

Cousin Diana enjoying her nachos.

    Afterwards they wanted to come and see Lisa's motor home, so here's a picture of the four of us. We had such a great time and can't wait to get together again!

Great shot of the four us and Lisa's motor home. Left to right: Vera, Diana, me in the front and Lisa behind me.

    There is nothing like family. We never spent a lot of time with my dad's side of the family, but my mom and dad both used to say to us all the time that "blood calls" and it does. Even though we seldom see these cousins there is a bond that we can't break, our ancestors blood runs through our veins and calls for us to be family even though we are literally strangers.

    I'm not going to lie and say that this has been a great trip, Lisa is here in body, but not in spirit or in mind or heart. Her spirit, mind and heart is with her husband and she is going through an agony that is unimaginable. Earlier that day we were driving through a busy part of town that has a lot of little shops and I had a memory while passing a bead store of my sister in law Connie and I bringing mom right before Covid to Pismo and taking her to several bead shops and there is one we particularly enjoyed with her and as we drove by I remembered that day and how happy my mom was and how special she felt and I also realized that someday my mom is going to be gone and my heart clenched in pain and it was brief, maybe a few seconds, but I then knew exactly how Lisa is feeling, it's an incapacitating pain and you feel as though your heart will explode  and there is nothing that you can do....except to be brave like my poor, dear sister is being brave. 

    More to come as I'm writing this several days later. Dinner with the cousins was Sunday afternoon. I'm writing this on Wednesday afternoon, October 26th and this morning they invited us to get together again with them for dinner and drinks tonight.

Heaven Needed Another Angel

 In my last post I mentioned that my sister’s husband Sean was going through a serious illness and that my sister was being kept busy being at the hospital with him and also preparing for his care upon his return to their home.

It is with great sadness and shock that I tell you that Lisa’s husband Sean, the love of her life passed away quietly in the hospital with his wife and two of his sons by his side. Their other two sons were with him via Facetime. His passing was unexpected and his illness progressed much faster than the doctors had anticipated.

Needless to say, my sister Lisa is devastated, they had been married for 32 years and had four sons, their sons’ wives and eleven grandchildren. Sean was only 57 years of age upon his passing, too young, way too young to have been taken from his family.

Sean’s funeral services were extraordinary! I believe he would have been so proud to have known what a beautiful sendoff he was given. He had lived in our small city almost his whole life, he went to school here, his boys all went to school here, he was well known and well-loved in the community.

Sean had a beautiful visitation at the local funeral home, it was a packed house and there was a Catholic Rosary recited for him, then a Pastor that was also his cousin said some words and recalled the last few times he had seen Sean. His sons wanted people to have the opportunity to share their memories of their father. Several people spoke including his sons and their wives. The most poignant speech for me was his granddaughter, you all know her as Baby J and I have shared many posts about her on my blog. Baby J loved her Poppa as she called him, as she named him since she is the oldest grandchild. She was so brave and reminded us that he was the best cop then she turned to her own dad and said “you are a good cop too daddy, but Poppa was the best.”

I shared a few words because of all the things that everyone said about him, no one mentioned his Heart of Service. He was someone that was always willing to help, someone that would do things without being asked. There was never a time that he came to my house that he didn’t throw out the trash, he just did it. He was ready to run errands before anyone else, he always stood up and gave his seat to any one new coming in, whether it was in the living room or in the kitchen. I found out about so many other kindnesses he did that I didn't even know about. One being that he would make breakfast burritos for the gardeners that came to mow his lawn on Mondays. 

He was the main person I knew I could count on when it came to Christmas tamale making time. He was the main person I counted on when I needed to move and needed muscle and a truck. He was always generous with Lisa’s time when I need a girl’s night out or a weekend getaway.

Sean was also a great giver of his time and gifts. He would stop by our house often, randomly, with flowers for my mom and sometimes for me as well, or he would bring her donuts or Twinkies, never arriving empty handed. Many aunts recounted at this funeral that he often brought them flowers as well. He had a true heart of service to his family, far and wide.

The day of his funeral we showed up first at the funeral home, one last time for his family to be with him before he was taken to the church for the Mass of Christian Burial. His four sons and a grandson, plus his brother and his best friend were all casket bearers.

When we arrived at the church there was an Honor Guard of Correctional Officers, all volunteering their time to be there for their brother Sean. Sean had been a Correctional Office for almost 17 years. They lined the steps to the church and when we walked in behind the casket the church was packed! I have never seen the church this packed ever for a funeral. The Mass was beautiful and the Priest gave a lovely sermon. After the Mass we had a procession out of the parking lot and Lisa’s wish was that the hearse drive by their home of 32 years so that he could be at his house one more time, since he never made it out of the hospital. I cry as I write this because it was such a bittersweet moment. Rick, the funeral director and dear friend to Lisa and our family stopped the hearse in the street in front of their house, he got out of the hearse and just stood there accompanying Sean is taking one last look at his home. Lisa and I and Baby J and his son Edward were in the car behind them, overcome with emotion. Then Rick got back in and we drove in procession to the cemetery.

There is still so much I want to recount about his service because someday we will want to look back on this and remember every moment, so I'm going to post this for now and continue it in the next few days. 

Brother in Law Ornaments

I don't mention my brother in law very often in most of my posts. He's kind of one of those strong, silent, stay-in-the-background kind of guys. But for the past few years he and I have been exchanging Christmas ornaments. Don't ask me how or why, cause I don't know. It just started and now, it's kind of a tradition.

Here's a picture of my brother in law Sean affectionately known by all who love him as Guero. This was taken at Sean Jr's high school graduation and that's my sister Lisa. Doesn't he look like the strong, silent, stay-in-the-background kind of guy?


He certainly doesn't look like an ornament shopper, but last year he gave me a gorgeously special ornament that he picked up while he was at Pismo Beach camping with my sister Lisa and their boys, Sean and Isaac.

A seascape ornament. If you click on it to enlarge you can see all the little tiny seashells sitting on the sand. There's even a starfish in there! And shells of all shapes and sizes. The really cool thing is that you can change the look of the ornament simply by swirling it gently and getting a whole new display in there. Is that awesome or what?

This year was a two'fer...I got two instead of one. Yippee for me!

First I got this cute little one with my name on it. It was tied to the top of the package that was holding the one I'm going to show you next.

I noticed on their tree that they also each have one with their names on them.

Then I also received this one.

This one is pretty cool because where each star burst or flower, depending on how you see it, comes to that trumpet-like end, there's a hole from the outside so you can actually put your finger in there. It serves absolutely no purpose to put your finger in there, I just thought it was pretty cool.

So thank you Guero! Thanks for all your help this past year. Thanks for always loaning my sister to me for those out of town trips and for loaning her to me on Friday nights. Thanks for the Christmas memories and for being a great father and a great husband. Thanks for the help you've given my family with both my mom and especially with my dad. God Bless you and Merry Christmas!