Funeral Yesterday - Barbara Jean Shumate

Went to a funeral yesterday... family friend died in a car accident Friday before last (June 13th). I was friendly with Barbara but not too close. I've known her basically all my life, but she's always been like the distant cousin everyone has -- we see each other at family functions but that's it. Either way, whether we were close or not, it was a big shock to all of us that we lost her last week - she was only 49. The funeral was not at all what I expected. Usually with our family we just have a small gathering of close friends and family. I swear it seemed like the whole city of Huntsville Texas showed up to say goodbye to Barbara Jean. It was standing room only, with people crowded in the back. I'd known that she'd worked as an instructor for TDCJ (Texas Dept of Criminal Justice) Academy since about forever, but I didn't realize what a military/police type of organization it was. They gave Sgt Barbara Shumate a full honor funeral - it was so touching. We walked through the honor guard lined up at the entrance to the funeral home; they presented the flags at the beginning, gave a gun salute and played taps at the end. There wasn't a dry eye in the place when they played taps. They also gave Barbara's children a Texas flag and the shot gun shells from the salute (I didn't know they did that). Plus, looking over the crowd at the funeral, it was a sea of grey - there were so many TDJC employees in uniforms there. Several people joked about "who's watching the prisoners?" because it seemed like every prison employee was crowded into the funeral home. And you could tell that they all adored Barbara. I swear, I've never seen so many grown men cry in my life. And we're talking big burly muscular prison guards - manly men! And each one was upset and crying over the loss of a little 5 foot nuthin of a woman (as one man said). I keep thinking about what one guy said about hugging her -- he's six foot something, and he said she only came to about his chest height when she hugged him, but he said when he closed his eyes, he knew that he was hugging a giant. Wow. Yeah, they all loved her - we all loved her. and we'll certainly miss her. Goodbye Barbara Jean...