Funerary Rain

As the super media coverage no doubt has informed you, Ted Kennedy died last week. I'm quite done with the coverage now, thankyouverymuch, but I was very attached to the Senator. He and Senator Kerry are the only ones I've had, unless you count Jack Reed, Linc Chafee, and Sheldon Whitehouse from my time in RI. But I've always been an MA registered voter, so really, they're it.

Thursday night, I got in line (along with 20,000 other people) to walk by his coffin and pay my respects to his family (all of whom were very gracious, shaking most of the hands that passed their way). When I got there, it was the most gorgeous weather of the summer - about 72, and a clear sky with puffy clouds and a nice stiff breeze - great sailing weather, as it had been the day before. Just what he would have loved. By the time we got in at 8:15 to see him, it was windy and autumnally cold. A change in the weather was nigh.

At least, sort of nigh. I spent Friday at Canobie Lake in New Hampshire with family, and after dinner time, it got COLD and started to pour. We were in line for our favorite old coaster, the Yankee Cannonball, and despite some internal grumblings, we got on. The cold rain pelted at my eyes as we went up the first hill, obscuring my sight. As the 80 year old coaster rounded the corners, we all pretty much thought we were going to die. The moral: don't trust a 16-year-old to correctly gauge when it's time to shut the coaster down for safety. Anyway, the rain began Friday night. Just in time for the funeral - thankfully, not mine.

Saturday morning, my mother woke me up so I wouldn't miss the funeral. Yes, we're that kind of family. Boston was gray and streaming. Dignitaries bustled in in a forest of black umbrellas. What is it about a funeral that tempts rain? It just feels right. I don't know whether it was relief or painful incongruity to the family, but when they buried him at Arlington, it was the pleasant end to a sunny day in Virginia. There should be some message or significance in that, but my brain's too fried to come up with it.