When All Else Fails, Make a Pyramid.

If there is one positive that comes from saying goodbye to someone you're close to, it's that it brings all the people who loved that person too under one roof. At the same time.

The day of my grandmother's funeral was the first time ever in existence that all of her grandchildren, all of us cousins, were together.

All 8 of us, under one roof. At the same time.

And when all 8 of us get together, apparently things get a little nutty. But when you have a bunch of pent up emotions and you have an emotional day filled with many many lows, the kind of lows that go along with saying "Goodbye," you tend to get a little nutty.

It's almost like your normal self leaves your body and you do things you normally wouldn't do.

Both sides of the family have different ways of celebrating the lives of our lost loved ones or maybe I mean hashing out our feelings or maybe a little of both.

On my mom's side of the family, there might be a pub involved after the funeral, which in turn will mean that maybe someone might miss a flight, someone might gets in a fight and someone might get thrown into a cold shower with his or her clothes on. There might be crying, there might be sharing of stories, but always in the end, there is hugging and bonding and releasing. 
On my dad's side of the family, you don't head to the pub. (Well at least not until the next day anyway.)

On my dad's side, you eat, you drink, and then, you make a pyramid.

I'm not quite sure why we made a pyramid.

But my cousin said, "Let's not take a stuffy old picture with all of us cousins." Like this one:


Like the kind that gets painted by an 1800's artist as a portrait and years later it looks like an ancient black and white photo with crispy edges.

No.

She said, "Let's take a fun photo! We should do a pyramid!"

And this is what I love about family.

Your roads may have taken all of you to various parts of the country, but you all look alike and when you come together, you all even act alike because you're genetically connected. And in my family we cousins have a lot in common together anyway, we're fortunate like that, and among the similarities, the same sense of humor.

Turns out we were all game for a little pyramid-making.

So, several hours after my grandmother's funeral, in my aunt's living room, there we were. Climbing on top of each other making a pyramid.

And no one even thought it was weird.

Or at least no one said anything.

But you don't just do pyramids if you're not into it.

So I'm pretty sure everyone was.

And if it's not enough that we have a picture of the pyramid, someone also took VIDEO of the pyramid so you can see the pyramid-making process. And if you listen clearly, you can hear me yelling, "HURRY!" to take the picture. Because I was on top. And I was balancing precariously on the back of a chair.

It was touch and go for a few minutes.

So here it is. This is how you avoid taking stuffy pictures with family you haven't seen in years.

Yup. When life hands you lemons, you make a pyramid.