family funeral

My Mom sent me an email that asked me to please go to my cousin's baby's funeral today, to represent the family, since no one else could go. I would have gone anyway, but that certainly sealed the deal.
The baby was 6 months old and the diagnosis, which isn't actually a diagnosis of all but rather an admission of "we have no idea" was SIDS. Still, a diagnosis of something is better than a whole lot of nothing, and now the family turns from shock and awe to the business of now-what.
So we went to New Hampshire to join my mother's side of the family for the funeral at a small church near Manchester.
I want to take a moment to say that the priest who celebrated the Mass was just a loon. Hey, I understand that he doesn't know the family personally, and I even get that it a priest can't mourn for every person he funeral-izes. But this guy was a bit too cheery for my liking- really seemed like he was having a pretty good time up there. He obviously didn't write his homily. He started to ramble, and rambled on. He showed everyone the cross on the urn, and rambled about that (it was a cool cross), and displayed the teddy bear with wings. But the worst part was when he mused on the baby's name. He stood over the mother and said "how did you choose the name Nicholas for him?" Sobbing, she answered, "his brothers chose his name" and he said "ah! Well, it just fascinated me because you know, in a couple of months it will be Christmas, it would have been his first Christmas and you will be singing 'Jolly Old St. Nick' and thinking of him."
Seriously. Thanks, Padre. Very sensitive. My aunts cooed about how great the priest had been and wasn't he just wonderful?? I guess grief is blind. Which is good. I wouldn't want them to have a really awful memory of the baby's funeral. So.
After the funeral they handed out white balloons and let everyone write a message on one with a sharpie, and together we all let them go. I watched my cousin watch her balloon fly up, up, with a stunned face. I don't know how mothers go on living when their children die. I am told that the love you feel for your children, especially when they're babies- it's overwhelming and complete. How do you ever even stand up again? It is just that fear, of falling in love like that and then losing it, that makes motherhood just too impossible to consider for me. I tried to imagine being there with what would have been our three year old now, and/or six months pregnant, and the ghosts of my non-babies were palpably present there in the church around me. God blessed me with the loss before I had to fall in love, and all things being equal (and they're not, of course) I'm thankful for that.