As I walked into the funeral home this morning, I could see a pained expression on my mother's face. It hurt me to see everyone like this. But it made me happy to know that everyone cared about my Uncle. My uncle suffered a lot the past four months with bone cancer -- he's not suffering anymore.

I saw my cousin sitting in the corner by herself so I went up to her and asked if she'd like to go for a walk with me. She said " sure" so we walked outside and talked about the memories we had with each other. We even talked about the memories of our Uncle Jay.

By the time we had walked around the funeral home twice it was time to go into the service. I had this feeling of queasiness in the pit of my stomach. I started to feel extremely nauseous and my heart was beating so fast.

We started to walk into the room where the funeral was being held and I looked over to see my mother bawling her eyes out. She kept saying "I can't do it" " I can't do it". My mom had to go in to another room with my dad so she could calm down but still hear the service. I had to go into the funeral with my sister and brother. As we sat and listened to the priest talk to us about Uncle Jay I started to cry.

The thing that I most remember about the funeral was that it was my first time hearing my brother say " I love you". I started to cry even more.

As the funeral continued I listened to all the eulogies about my uncle. I looked around at all of the people. I could see the pain in my family’s eyes. But as I started to cry more I remember what my Aunt Lynn had said When the tears start to come look up and they wont come out. The end of the funeral came and it was time to go to my Aunt Lynn’s house to have a late brunch.

We got to my Aunt’s house at about 1:00 I walked in to see about 30 people standing in the house. It was so crowded that I could barely walk through the kitchen. I followed my cousin’s upstairs to Ali’s room.

After about an hour we went downstairs to talk to some people. We sat down on the swinging chair outside. At that moment one of my Uncle’s friend’s named Jim walked up to us and asked what the scariest part of the funeral was for us. All three of us at the same time said that the fact that his body was in front of us. We all laughed and then cried.

I noticed that I had been closer to my cousins today then ever before. It's strange that it took a death to do this.

I'm going to miss you Uncle Jay.