Mixed feelings about a funeral...

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This has been a very strange weekend, and will prove to be an even stranger week. Saturday morning, my sister called me to tell me that my mother, who was visiting our grandmother, called my sister while she was at work. That put her on alert because our grandmother's health has been failing for a long time and we're always dreading this phone call. Well, what we were worried about wasn't what happened. My mother had gotten a call that her boyfriend had passed away Friday night. We were all very shocked - kinda.... This man has survived 2 different kinds of cancers and was doing very well the last few months. Although he had part of his lung removed last fall because of cancer, he was almost back to normal here lately. No one really knows what happened, only that his son was worried that he couldn't get in touch with him Saturday morning and went to his house and found him "sleeping" in his chair. So, my mother came home to find out what was going to happen. I've spent most of the weekend at her house, making sure she was ok and all. She had been pretty exclusive with this man for probably 15 years, although they've been an "item" much longer than that. I had definitely planned on going to at least one of the veiwings, and figured I should go to the funeral also, even though he wasn't my step-father or even a father-figure. I just wanted to be there for my mom. Well, the funeral is a couple hours drive and it's on a weekday. I'll have to take the entire day off work and most of the day will be in the car driving to and from the funeral. When I first found out it was going to be held out of state, I wasn't going to go. But, the look my mom gave me and the way she kinda sighed about it, I knew I needed to go the whole way for her. So, Tuesday night is the veiwing - my sister will be saying some words for him - and Thursday afternoon is the funeral. It is going to be really strange thinking of our family reunions and stuff without him there. I'm really not sure how my mom will deal with this, but I think it's important that she know we're all here for her.