Pete Bungum's BLOG - Day 26,142 in my journey through life.

Today is Saturday, June 16, 2012 - a very hot and humid day in the 90s. I'm grateful for another day of "I'm HIV."

Thsi morning I did yoga, the exercise ball and walked 36 minutes = 2.0 miles for a June total of 27.6 miles. I didn't weigh becasue of I don't want to look at the results - too much food at Chuck's funeral.

Well, it's over. Chuck's funeral was Thursday, June 14, 2012. We left Wednesday, all four of us, at 6:40 am and made it to Alexandria by 3:30. We went to the hotel, changed clothes and went to the wake from 5 to 7 pm. Then we went to Chuck and Marlys' house and stayed until 11 pm and back to the hotel where brother John, Brad and I stayed up until 1:3- am talking about Chuck and Marlys, their kids, our family and our uncles and aunts.  On Thursday we went to the church at 1 pm and the service started at 2 pm.

It was truly a celebration of Chuck's life. All three of his kids talked about their Dad and son-in-law Jack gave a talk also. We had a lot of laughs and I was so proud of the kids for not breaking down. The organist was accompanied by son Brett, grandsons Josh and Sam on their trumpets, daughter Andrea on the cello, and daughter-in-law Cheryl sang a solo. The American Legion had two members there and they presented the flag to Marlys. Then Brett and son Sam played TAPS and the final song was Anchor's Aweigh because of Chuck's service in the U.S. Navy. I didn't lose it but I came close with TAPS and Anchor's Aweigh.

Many of us were invited back to the their home for food and refreshments. Brad and Carron were able to see 15 of their cousins - many of whom they hadn't seen in many years. We told more stories that night about Chuck and the laughter continued for many hours. Ruth Ann, Carron, Brad and I were the last to leave at 11:30 pm.

As sad as it is lose for people to lose a husband, father, father-in-law, brother, uncle, or friend I can say this was truly a "celebration of Chuck's life." The best laugh was told to us at the house when one of the kids said that Chuck had scribbled on his "end of life wishes" - which were to not be kept alive by artificial means: his words were "If all my body parts were working now you wouldn't have to be reading this." That was Chuck at his funniest. I'm going to miss this guy - miss him a lot.