Today was not an ordinary day for us in the sense of our usual routines of chores and projects. We were up at 7:45 AM, got dressed up more than usual, and had our usual granola breakfast but I did not make coffee. We left at 8:45 AM and drove to our daughter’s house near Dexter. We arrived at 9:30 and Brendan, Shawna, and Madeline pulled in right behind us. We visited for about 20 minutes which gave Madeline time to get into the flow of being at Aunt Meghan and Uncle Chris’s house. She was sitting on the couch with Meghan watching an animated video on Shawna’s iPad when we left.
We rode with Brendan and Shawna in their Subaru Outback. Our destination was the Waldorf Pub Ballroom in Hastings, Michigan. The reason for our trip was a Celebration of Life for Shawna’s father, Michael (Mick) James Lee, who passed away a little over a week ago from a non-cancerous but malignant brain tumor.
The quickest route to Hastings from Dexter is south to I-94 and then west to M-37, which runs northwest up to Hastings. We stopped at the Panera in Jackson where Linda and I both got coffee and I got an “everything” bagel to go. We arrived at the Waldorf at noon.
The gathering did not start until 2 PM but Shawna had agreed to come early to help with setup. That left us with some time so we went for a walk up and down the main street before returning to the ballroom. Shawna’s sister, Tracy, brother Rob, their mom, Carol, and Mick’s wife, Carol were there and we had a chance to visit briefly with them before everyone else started showing up. I did not try to do a head count but there were at least 100 people there, and possibly 150. Mick was a teamster and a lot of his social life involved his fellow truck drivers and was centered on their union local. I think a lot of them were there.
Tracy had assembled a slide show with 180 images and put together a mix of Mick and Carol’s favorite tunes. At 2 PM she read an honest, heartfelt, and warm remembrance of Mick. Mick’s lifelong friend gave a similar reflection, followed by Mary Kay, the sister of Mick’s wife Carol. A nice buffet was set out that included fresh fruit, vegetables, and small slices of toasted bread, so we had plenty to eat. There was a full bar available but hot coffee (regular and decaf) and cold lemonade met our needs.
Heavy rains moved in just after 2 PM but moved through before we left at 4:30. We went back down M-37 to I-94 and headed east. Shawna and Linda were following our progress using the GPS feature of their phones. There was an accident at the interchange with US-127 so Brendan exited at Airport Road and Linda navigated him through Jackson and back on to I-94 at Copper Road. Shawna noticed a rainbow ahead of us and then Linda spotted a second, fainter one, with a larger diameter than the first. We were able to see at least the main one, and usually both of them, all the way to the Dexter Road exit and part of the way to Dexter. It was quite a sight.
We got back to Meghan and Chris’s house around 6:30 PM. Madeline had a great day with her buddy Aunt Meghan but was keeping watch for our return and was excited to see her mom and dad and her Grandma Linda and Grandpa Bruce. We left at 6:50 and on the way home decided to go the Los Tres Amigos restaurant on Grand River Avenue just east of Latson Road, arriving at 7:30 PM. We had the vegetarian fajitas, and they were OK, but dining out allowed us to eat a little sooner without Linda having to cook.
After dinner we drove to the Shell station in Brighton and topped off the tank in Linda’s Honda Civic so she would not have to stop in the morning on her way to walk with Diane. At home we watched an episode of Sherlock on PBS and then an episode of Rick Steve’s Europe.