A Funeral, a bunch of relatives and me

Today I went to the funeral of my Aunt Josie and I cried a little bit. But I laughed more than anything. I expected the day to be worse than it actually was. It was really awkward though because I am estranged from my grandmother. It wasn't a choice I made but one that was forced upon me. It was weird, really freakin' weird because for the first little while my grandmother said nothing...didn't even look at me. I felt bad because here she was at her sister's funeral. So, me being me I decided to go and give her a hug. It was rather grown up and brave of me. I didn't do it because of the fall out we had but because it was a sad day and I needed my own piece of mind. Later I told her she needed to talk to my mom and stop making excuses. It was beyond weird being there with her after four years.
After the funeral we went to my cousin's house for a barbeque. All my aunts were there. It was a really good time. It made me think that maybe my aunt's death was for a purpose - to reunite the family. Otherwise, who knows when I would have seen my other aunts and family members. The thing that's really sad is that some of them live in town and I never see them. My sis KK reminds me of my Aunt Millie because they tell stories the same way and they're so animated and just have this fantastic sense of humour. It was a really good time. It was ALMOST as if nothing had ever happened. Sure, my Aunt Josie wasn't there but this is what she would have wanted. It made me think that we weren't celebrating her death but rather her life.
It was weird too though because I have all this family that I barely know and never really thought about getting to know them. Turns out some of them are crazy in a good way. Some of my aunts are really funny and if I got over the whole being shy and contiued to be my loud, obnoxious self I would fit right in. Especially since there's no denying that I look like half of them. (7 aunts, 1 uncle) That's alot of people. It's funny because you get the whole family in the same room and you can tell that we are all related, I guess that's how the rest of the extended family (and friends) identifies us.
I can't get over how much my Aunt Millie made me laugh. She's off the hook...which is like the rest of us but she's off of it in a good way. I couldn't make out half of what she said but the fact that everyone else was laughing and how animated she was made me laugh. Made me laugh so hard that when I had to go to the bathroom I didn't want to leave the room because I was afraid that I would miss something funny.
In some respects, I'm glad that you can't choose your family. But, I still wish that I could choose some others to be my family, then again aren't friends the family you choose?