Finally got back to Colorado the first week in July to have Gary's Celebration of Life gathering.   Thanks to COVID-19 we had to delay that for well over a year as he passed away at home on Feb. 10, 2020.   It was a long drive, but I had help with the driving from a friend who took a few days off from her waitressing job to help me out.   We dropped the dogs off south of Tucson at my youngest sister's house, then headed up through NM and into Colorado from there.   My younger sister from MD flew into Denver, and met us at the hotel on Wed., the 7th.  We stopped at the BBQ place to make sure the catering was on schedule for after the gathering the next day, and got the same cold, nasty treatment from the catering manager that I had dealt with over the phone ever since booking it nearly a month earlier.   Once they got my credit card number, all I got was excuses why I couldn't get a receipt for what I ordered, or anyone to call me back to verify that they took the information down correctly for the lunch on July 8th.    

We had his celebration on July 8th - what would have been his 74th birthday - but was now his 2nd heavenly birthday.   Crowd size was a little over half of what I had anticipated, so we had a lot of leftover boxed lunches that we took to homeless persons on the street, a park maintenance crew and even dropped some at the nearest fire station.   My sister flew back to DC that Friday so my friend, Rose and I went for pedicures and I got a haircut before heading back to Arizona that Saturday.   It was short and sweet and hopefully gave everyone the closure they needed.   

Sarah