  Hi everyone. Yeah, its been a while since we updated. Aunt Helen's funeral was kind of a weird experience for me. She was laid out for a day before the funeral, which essentially means she was literally laid out in an open casket in a chapel for a whole day so that people could come and visit her and say goodbye. As family we stayed around the entire day, talking to everyone who came by. In fact, it was about 90% family so most of the 20-or-so people there hung around for the entire day, just mainly standing around talking.
I cannot overstate how much it freaked me out, standing around talking for 8 hours with a dead person in the room. It wouldn't have seemed so weird if everyone had seemed sad, but we didn't. It appears that family funerals here are like Irish funerals. Its like the joke Uncle&nbsp;Al told me: "Whats the difference between an Irish Wedding and an Irish Funeral? " &nbsp; "One less drunk guy. " Its all done now though. The funeral itself was kind of sad, although it was a glorious sunny day and there were some really nice flowers.
Aunt Helen was buried in St Johns Cemetary in Middle Village amongst the likes of Harry Houdini, so I guess she's in good company. I never really knew her all that well but she was always kind to me. I think she liked me and she thought that Diane and I make a good couple. I'm glad we went and saw her a couple of times since we got here, even though she had no real clue who we were. She was always happy to see visitors, and never complained about anything even though she was really in a bad way. Hopefully now she's in a better place, wherever that may be. ~Martin 
