My Life Today: One Wedding and a Funeral

The religious wedding of Péter (@peter-z), a son of my wife Kati, and Timi (Timea, @stimea) took place in Székelyudvarhely, Transylvania, Saturday July 28^th 2018 in the afternoon, in a rather modern church.

Not understanding Hungarian, I understood only two words during the whole ceremony: Alleluia and Amen.

There were around 50 people in the church, from both families.

After the ceremony, we went to a park to take pictures.

The reception took place near the park. I did not stay very late, but I still had some vegan food, and I danced for more than 5 minutes!

I was in bed at 9:15 PM, because I had to get up very early the next day, to drive to France and go to the funeral of my mother who had just died at 97 years of age.

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On Sunday, I left with my car at 4:30AM and drove 2,500 km to France in two days.
Sunday night, I stopped in Salzburg, Austria, after 15.5 hours on the road, crossing Romania, Hungary and Austria.
And Monday at 5AM, I started driving for 12.5 hours through Germany and France. I arrived at the Abbey at 5:30PM.

There, I found a number of my brothers and sisters, nephews and nieces, and their children, that were already at the Abbey.

We were 17 at dinner Monday night. On the picture below, we can see 3 of my 7 brothers (Jérôme on the left, Philippe and Bernard on the right), my 2 sisters Monique and Nicole, as well as the wives of Jérôme and Bernard, Monique's husband (hidden behind Jérôme) and several of my nephews and nieces.

On Tuesday July 31^st, before the funeral, we took pictures.

Here we have the 10 living children of my mother: Philippe, Bruno, Vincent, Monique, Antoine, Benoit, Grégoire, Jérôme, Bernard and Nicole.

The funeral took place 22 years to the day after the death of my sister Brigitte, in the church of Breil.

The 10 brothers and sisters are ready to bring the coffin inside the church:

The priests officiating were my first cousin Ronan, 49, a son of a brother of my mother, and my uncle Étienne, 90, a brother of my late father.

My nephews and nieces carried the coffin for 200 metres from the church to the cemetery of Breil.

The coffin was put in the tomb where my father was buried in 1998. I was not able to be at my father's funeral, so I was happy to be able to be at my mother's.

At the cemetery, some of the grandchildren of my mother made short statements. My three daughters, Roseline, Betty and Gaëlle, had sent texts that were read by myself and two of their cousins.

My mother has had a long and mostly happy life. She was ready to leave and we were prepared for her departure.
The funeral was an opportunity to gather our rather large family.

Her 10 living children, 25 out of 34 living grandchildren and 7 of her 38 great grandchildren were there. There also were several of my uncles, aunts and cousins, some of them I had not seen for years.

Most people left on Tuesday evening. At lunch on Wednesday, we were still 11. And in the evening, only my brother Philippe and myself stayed at the Abbey.