Funeral Pickles

About 17 years ago my Grandmother died. It wasn't any huge shock or great tragic event. She had been sick and old since I was born and it just seemed like she wasn't really "there" anyway.
Her name was Mary. When she was 16 she married my Grandfather Alvin. The two of them lived in a farmhouse in Embro, population 60. Six of those 60 people were her kids. Each and every one of them born in the stone farmhouse, just down the road from the volunteer firestation.
The first time my Mother met my father's parents (who were by any definition of the word "hicks") my Dad brought her to dinner in that farmhouse. Everything took place in the kitchen - the woodstove heated the whole house and cooked all the meals. Later, when they had tv, that would be in the kitchen as well. My mother met them in that kitchen.
My Dad, knowing my Mom was really nervous asked her what she though they were having for dinner - what could she smell? Well, my mother had no idea. Dad said, open the woodstove and check. No way was my mother brought up to open other people's ovens - but with Dad's family watching her - she really had no choice.
So as my mother told the story, she walked to the woodstove with everyone staring at her, opened it up and SCREAMED! Inside a wooden box lined with a towel were half a dozen live piglets! The sow had given birth that morning and they were keeping them in the woodstove because it was winter and no one wanted them to freeze. Of course they were. And dinner was sandwiches. It scared her to death. Actually, thinking about it now, its a wonder she ever at pork again!
Back to Grandma's funeral. My boyfriend, now my husband, and I drove to Stratford then followed my parents to Embro along the snowy back roads. This place is the bermuda triangle of the snowbelt and has some really wicked winter weather. Really bad. And, as we were driving our mustang to the funeral, we drove off of the road and into a ditch.
Because my parents were up ahead, of course they didn't see us get ditched. The just drove along on their merry way.
I suppose that I could have pushed the car, if I really wanted to, in my funeral suit and sensible pumps. But I didn't want to. So Wayne, in his funeral suit and dress shoes, got out and pushed us out of the ditch. We made the funeral in the nick of time although its not like she was going anywhere.
Six months later, at my Auntie Anna's funeral in Embro (my Dad's sister) we had more car troubles. At the burial at the cemetary in town (I know you are thinking 60 people? how could they need a cemetary? but they did!) my parent's locked their keys in their van. Of course everyone had already left by the time they figured it out and this was well before the time of cell phones. Eventually someone missed them and went back to help them out.
The point I'm trying to make is that in my family - the funeral itself is never the event. Its the coming and going that are the things you remember. The bright greenish blue sweet funeral pickles that the ladies of the legion make and serve at funerals. That's the memory maker!
A couple of years ago in a drunken diatribe I said to my friends - "when I go, you will all remember what a good person I was - what a great mom and an excellent friend. You're not going to sit around saying she kept the messiest house ever!" And shockingly one said - "Oh yes we will! We say that now!" I just hope that when my time does come someone goes into the ditch, locks their keys in the car and the guy that thinks I'm a terrible housekeeper chokes on a funeral pickle!