We buried my sweet Aunt Neva on Tuesday. She was 80 and had spent the last nine years battling Alzheimer’s.

And today we said goodbye to my cousin Linda Rose. She was only 68 and had lost her fierce battle to peritoneal cancer.

That’s too many funerals, too many good-byes for one week.

But every funeral I attend highlights how important our individual and collective stories are to the people we leave behind.

The church of my childhood, the tiny Wakarusa, KS Presbyterian Church, has a quaint but wonderful custom of allowing friends and family to share recollections during the funeral program. Aunt Neva’s stories were recounted by her daughter, grandchildren, sisters and assorted other relatives. Her heavenly cherry pies figured prominently in many of the stories. Nobody could bake a cherry pie like Neva.

Cousin Linda had similar stories told about her today, primarily featuring mushroom hunting tales and ones of her formation and leadership in a local musical group, Crystal Canyon Band. Her son Dana was a part of that band, as was her husband Wayne. It was Dana’s voice that rang out one of the funeral songs today, “I Did It My Way,” and his musical gift was obvious even to those of us who had never attended one of the band’s gigs.

One of the best ways that Cousin Linda did things her way was to publish two books of her hilarious escapades with friends and family members. It was my privilege to help her publish the second one. I understand from her daughter Leslie that she had a third one started, so we may have to see about getting that one finalized too.

Two years ago our oldest female cousin, Alice Jean, died and brought us together at her funeral so we could retell some of her stories. She also left a written record of a part of her life that I hope to find time to keyboard and publish. The title alone could make it a commercially viable book: Diary of a Mother Trucker.

Alice Jean, Linda and I were inseparable in our early years. We were the Three Musketeers of the family, always getting in trouble and leaving a trail of chaos behind us. My nickname at the time was Twister and I’m sure, with the clan I was born into, the other two had similar monikers. Now two of us are gone, leaving me to wonder what I’ll be remembered for when my lottery ticket gets punched. I hope it will be for recording and retelling everyone else’s stories.