Exercising our quiet voice

Sabrina and I drove up to Baltimore, Maryland on Tuesday for a family member's funeral. Sabrina had already been to 2 funerals in her young life. This one, however, was the saddest of all... my step-mother's mother Valerie passed away after a long battle with brain cancer. She knew and loved Sabrina. My step-mother definitely wanted Sabrina to come, so off we went (Gene's work demands prohibited him from attending unfortunately).

She did great during the drive up, although I wished she would have taken the opportunity to nap early on, she only did so for the last 20 minutes of the hour-and-a-half journey. We got to my brother and his girlfriend Amelia's house for a quick pancake breakfast before caravanning to the church about 30 minutes away. The church was beautiful, one of those old, small, quaint and charming churches with a central aisle and organ pipes in the back. My brother was an usher so he went to the family corralling area while Amelia, Sabrina and I took seats in the last "reserved for family" row.

As you can imagine, it was pretty quiet in there as people prayed and reflected on Valerie's life. Amelia thought to bring a little notebook, stickers, and some colored pencils to keep Sabrina busy. We had put all of these items in her little "Dora the Explorer" purse. About 15 minutes before the service started, the organ music began. Sabrina started swaying to the music (she loves all kinds!) and Amelia and I chuckled that we've never observed anyone do that to organ music before. The first organ hymn came to a close and Sabrina exclaimed "Uh oh!" to the sudden silence in the church. Everyone there chuckled as her little comment helped to lighten the mood. She must have wondered why someone hit the mute button or something...

She was very well behaved during the service, much to my relief. She loved the singing, especially. At times she sat on the floor, at our feet, playing with the stickers, but never tried to "escape". When she did say something to me, she used a very quiet voice. After the service, everyone who came to us said how impressed they were with her behavior. One lady who sat behind us even told us that Sabrina was so cute she found herself watching her instead of the priest :)