The Weekend Before

With a funeral planned for Monday morning, 2/13/17, I felt like we were kind of killing time all weekend in anticipation. It's hard to relax or think of anything but such an unpleasant impending event. Saturday was gorgeous, so we headed to the new location of Gomez Salsa in Walnut Hills.  Previously, one of our favorite restaurants only existed as a walk-up/take-out window in OTR, so it's nice to now have a sit-down option - along with margaritas!

The weather was nice enough to even go for a stroll around the lake at Winton Woods. It was actually a good opportunity to walk with Francisco and talk about Gramma and share some of my memories about her.  

I've definitely been a sad panda, but Francisco does a good job at helping me cheer up.  

We hit the road for Chicago Sunday morning with a quick stop at Starbucks and Busken Bakery - I tried a pazcki for the first time, basically just a dense jelly-filled donut.  

Of course, we were starving by the time we were nearing the end of our drive, so we called my parents ahead of time to see if they would be up for going out for lunch. Thank goodness they were! We had read a couple good reviews of Pequod's Pizza recently, so we headed into the city to try this award-winning pizza.  

It was good but not as cheesy as I had hoped!  

Shake Shack was the other must-see on my Chicago list. I hadn't realized they had a Chicago location until recently. My parents kept it simple with Chocolate and Strawberry shakes; I had a Salted Carame'L' Concrete (it features a Glazed & Infused doughnut!); Francisco had a Salted Vanilla Toffee shake.     

After our outing, my dad basically asked me not to post any pictures of him smiling. He explained that he didn't want to look like he was having such a good time before his mother's funeral. I understand that people are sensitive about these things and everyone grieves differently, and you never want to feel like your disrespecting the memory of someone you care about...But I tried to answer from the heart when I told him that the best thing that could possibly come from losing someone you love is the reminder that you should value your time with your loved ones in your life. If someone is going to judge him for sharing a meal and an afternoon with his wife, daughter, and son-in-law, that's their issue, not his. I don't know; to me, losing someone you love is a strong reminder that life is short and we should fill our time with things that matter. Grieving is important and natural, but it's okay to have happiness interspersed in your life as you move through the healing process.  

That said, I felt similarly. I had thought about going up to Chicago on Saturday, maybe trying to get together with friends or something, but something just felt inappropriate about trying to have a good time right before a funeral. I realize now how ridiculous that is, and I regret not having gone up sooner to make more of the weekend. You definitely tend to regret more what you didn't do vs. what you did.