This Veteran's Day was a little more eventful than normal. Usually I take time to remember the wars of the past during this holiday, something that comes more naturally to me being a history teacher. This Veteran's Day was different however. We, Pam and I, had been invited to the wedding of our Branch President's daughter, which he would perform.
On Wednesday I met a woman, who with President Huxhold, asked me to do a grave dedication an hour before the wedding since he would not be able to be in both places. I agreed to dedicate the grave and direct a memorial service for the man whom I had never met and for the family that I would meet during the ceremony.
That night Pinon had its first real snow storm of the year, there's been some snow before this, but no actual storms. Due to the fact that the roads aren't paved Pam and I would have to leave pretty early in order to get there on time, which of course we didn't do.
You know me, getting out of bed is an all morning event.
The drive was extremely beautiful, snow gives Pinon and the surrounding area an aura of beauty that it typically doesn't have.
Luckily we still beat the body to the burial site, by a lot of time. I got out of the SUV and was very worried to see a horse trailer near the grave with a very beautiful animal in it. I talked with the family about what would happen during the ceremony and what would happen to the unfortunate animal.
In Navajo tradition a horse needs to be shot at the funeral so that the dead person can have it to ride in the afterlife. The family really wanted this to happen and there was no way for me to stop it. One family member laughingly told me of a time ten years ago when they tried to shoot a horse for a funeral and it ran away and is still alive. I looked into the frightened eyes of the animals and silently told it to run.
The ceremony was very beautiful, the son gave a eulogy for his 93 year old father. Granddaughters sang Christian hymns in the Navajo language, I offered some comforting words about the resurrection and explained the dedicatory prayer before dedicating the place for the body.
Even though I had never met the man; even though I would have never been able to understand him since he only spoke Navajo, I could not help but feel a sense of loss at his death. The weeping and the sadness that surrounded me was intense.
Pam and I were invited to eat with them, but I decided that I wanted to eat with happier people. We journeyed back into Pinon and ate at the wedding reception.
The wedding had started almost an hour late, Rez time works differently than everywhere else time. It was good to see many of the branch members and a lot of my students were at the wedding, which was kind of cool to see them outside of the academic setting.
After the wedding Pam and I decided to relax, we had a big day, by then the snow had completely melted away (otherwise I'd have pictures of the snow) and we could have the rest of the day to just have a day off; even if the day was more than half over.
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