About a month ago I began writing about driving my family to attend an aunt's funeral, but stopped short of describing the most difficult part of the experience.  Hard to make myself think about it, and besides wanted to give energy to the contest.  Now that so much time has elapsed I may be a bit fuzzy on details, but there are some significant conversations/events I need to process, as they have to do with my baggage.  The prior DS journal entries describing the arrival at my deceased aunt's home are the two for Saturday July 7 and the next one for July 12.  They're long.  The Reader's Digest condensed version is that I've just road-tripped the 600 miles to my hometown, rented a minivan, picked up my Salt Lake City Uncle from the airport, then transported him, my sister, and my parents another 200 miles to the town where the funeral will be held the next morning.  It is 11:00 PM when we finally get to Aunt Nellie's.*********************************5 Days.  2,000 Miles.  Unfinished Business.Tuesday, July 3.I haven't seen Cousin John, Aunt Nellie's second child, in at least 33 years.  Just before he moved to Texas, we figure.  I was probably 15, he was 19 and had pro-tennis ambitions.  Of all the relatives I am going to re-connect with, John is the one I am most nervous about.  Other cousins warned me when I came out to them that it probably would not be a good idea to contact him.  He is probably the most enthusiastic and conservative born-again in our entire extended family.  Given how difficult it was to resolve things with my own parents (eight years they refused to talk to me after I gave them the news, other than to try to harangue me back to Jesus.) I wasn't anxious to go through more of the same, so I chose to let sleeping dogs lie.Rewind: A few weeks before before Nellie's death, John was in the hospital for a couple of days for a not-so-serious procedure, but one that did need to be monitored.  He was recuperating well, got bored, and took a page out of my sister Janie's book and started calling everyone on his cell phone.  Janie had given him my number, with my permission.  I never expected anything to come of it.I am at the age where I tend to be upfront about my orientation.  Not because I am trying to be one of those in-your-face gays, but because I've become one of those this-is-what-I-am-and if-you're-going-to-have-a-problem-with-that tell-me-now so-I-can-avoid-having-to-deal-with-your-shit gays.   So I bring it up - John has never been informed directly, which surprises me; I thought by now everyone in the family knew whether I told them or not).  He has guessed from comments my sister Janie made - although she will probably never say the words, "my brother is gay."  The religious taboos we were brought up with have been so exquisitely imprinted on her that she gets furious with me whenever I mention our anniversary.  It's been 21 years, but no, that's not enough time for someone on the spectrum to relax about what isn't going to change.  Sigh.At any rate, it turns out that Cousin John has mellowed a bit over the years, and for a fundamentalist is not as harsh as I expect.  The phone conversation is mostly pleasant.Fast forward to midnight at Aunt Nellie's, I'm sleeping in a room right around the corner from the kitchen, my parents and sister have put themselves away for the evening.  Uncle Harley is still on Salt Lake time, and besides he's a night-owl, so he's in the kitchen discussing his family tree research with John.  John is cutting up potatoes for hash brown breakfast he plans to make in the morning.  Twice I lay down, twice I get up to go the kitchen to tell John what my family is going to need.  One of those needs is Janie's.  At previous funerals she managed to hold herself together until the gathering after the services, and then she fell apart.  Noisily and dramatically.  Before we left my parents house I told her that I had been thinking about her and wanted to give her a Plan B, in case she was feeling overwhelmed.  If she found that she couldn't take it anymore and needed some quiet time alone she should text message me.  My phone would be set on vibrate, so wherever I was I could quietly excuse myself and help her locate a peaceful place to go, even if it was to sit out in the van by herself.  Janie is delighted with this plan, especially since we haven't used the text message feature (because I don't want to have a gargantuan monthly bill).  It's a new toy for her and gives her a feeling of relief and support.  My question of John is whether there is in the church or at the graveside a place I can take her if she should need it.There is.We get to talking.  It's that late-night early-morning mode, when exhaustion brings thoughts and feelings close to the surface, when you want connection.  John is going to give the eulogy, doesn't quite know yet what he's going to say, but isn't too phased by this since he is one of the lay ministers in his home church.  I sympathize, and tell him about cousin Brucie singing his own composition at his mother's funeral (my Mom's oldest sister who died a few years ago).  I sang "Will the Circle Be Unbroken?" with him, had my hand on his shoulder when Brucie's voice cracked, ready to jump in on the verse if he couldn't continue.  Somehow he found a way to do it.  John thinks he will be okay.Then, I don't know why, maybe because it was approaching 2 AM, I never should have brought it up, maybe because I was so tired that my filters had already gone to sleep -  I said that the thing I feared most about my Mother's funeral is having to defend myself against all the Christianity, in addition to coping with my grief, which I'll have to repress until after everything is done, because I'll have to be the coping system for two abnormally functioning adults, namely my father (undiagnosed, but we believe Asperger's) and my sister (who in many ways is like, perhaps is, a high-functioning autistic).That was the can of worms I never should have opened in front of John.  Oh gawd, the arrogant born-again Christian things he said to me, I never, never should have brought it up.  At one point I said to him, through gritted teeth, twice, "do NOT witness to me."  Lordy, he went on: No, I couldn't be an atheist, they don't exist, one day I'll learn that I'm wrong, I'm being held prisoner by my anger at Christianity because I refuse to forgive the abandonment when I came out (besides my own parents' ostracism I had been more or less dropped by all my Christian friends as if having nothing to do with me anymore would tough love me back to Jesus and heterosexuality), we're all "rascals" in the eyes of the Lord, who am I to judge (yes, I find that statement arrogant too).I don't remember how we ended that conversation... I do remember telling him how much I hated having my family tell me about Jesus, that the Jesus talk has always been used to hold me at arm's length, that I felt connected to my family when we talked about the stuff that felt REAL to me - the mundane stuff of life, about feelings, about loving and missing Aunt Nellie.  I think he heard that, because he dropped the "Jesus" from his sentences.  I excused myself back to bed, and lay awake for a while feeling guilty - how did I manage to make the night before John's mother's funeral about MY shit?  I feel like crap and eventually go to sleep.Uncle Harley didn't say much.  After breakfast he says that it was very entertaining - and that he didn't realize how much trauma I had experienced when I came out.  I tell him I'm sure it was, and that I'm still kind of pissed off at the superior tone John had about asserting the truth of his journey over mine.The other family members get up, get dressed, I help John feed them and do the dishes.   Before we leave the house I apologize to John for my selfishness and give him a big hug. The funeral home opens early to allow some of us late arrivals time for a brief viewing before she is taken to the church on the other side of town.  Eleanor, named for her mother and 5th in the birth order, and her preacher husband Frank are at the funeral parlor.  Frank, to my very great surprise, makes a point of inquiring about my husband George (who was not able to come with me).  I've met Frank before and always had the impression that he found me hard to tolerate.  I don't think I'm that queenie, but maybe he thinks so.  "It means a lot to me that you asked," I tell him.Aunt Nellie is barely recognizable.  She had always been quite plump in life, but her last illness has taken all that fullness away.  They've dressed her beautifully and tastefully.  A cousin has put a teapot in the casket with her, a memento of a collection they shared.  A scrapbook of photos, put together by John's daughter who just got married the week before.  A moment of pause: John has raised three children to adulthood since I saw him last.--to be continued--