Shared experiences are oddly comforting.

It’s often nice to know we are not the only one going through something.

One of the more unfortunate shared experiences of 2020-21 was losing a loved one. During the height of the pandemic, funeral or memorial services were not feasible like we’d come to know them.

My grandmother passed in the fall of 2020, and, of course, it was sad. There was an obituary in the paper and her sons (one of whom is my father), had to make a slew of necessary arrangements. It was all a reminder that, even in a pandemic, time doesn’t stop.

There was no funeral. It was not possible, with the case count where it was in her part of western Pennsylvania. So, me, amid my busy life of working and being a dad and husband, took a quick moment to contemplate, and a few more moments to see how my parents were doing. But there was never that proper time for reflection that comes with a service.

Instead, that moment was deferred to earlier this month, when my family converged on the Pittsburgh area for a couple days of togetherness.

The first thing I noticed about the experience was the air of comfort through family. Yes, there was some grief, but, with a service taking place about nine months after my grandmother’s passing, the mourning felt different.

Normal services occur just days after one’s death, and the sting, shock, and sadness of loss is often palpable at calling hours, funeral services, or graveside ceremonies.

But, unlike the services I’ve been to in the past, waiting nine months did feel like more of a celebration of her life. The service was traditional and appropriate, as my grandmother would have liked it, and my father’s well-written eulogy did elicit a few tears, but the smiles outweighed them.

Stories — many of them — were the highlight of the weekend, where more Speers were in one place than any other time I could remember. So I was able to see a handful of people whom I haven’t seen since I was still living under my parents’ roof.

My big takeaway from the weekend is a recentering toward the importance of family.

I feel one’s college and young adult years are about finding out who one is. Then comes a partner and, at least for us, kids. It’s all about them at first. Then you make time for both sets of parents, brothers, sisters, and other close relations.

What often gets harder to maintain, especially with distance factored in, is the level of family that includes aunts, uncles, and cousins.

This was a weekend of connecting with many of those people, and it led me to want to seek deeper connections with those relations on all sides of our family.

In the end, I think it was how my grandmother would have wanted it.

Many of us have been geographically separated for a long time. But, on that July weekend, we all made our way to Pittsburgh to celebrate her, but also to celebrate family.

Yes, we lost the ability to mourn and spend time together in the days following my grandmother’s passing, but it was good to see the air of celebration and family flow through a weekend in her honor.

I write this not to minimize what families have gone through in not being able to properly say goodbye to loved ones amid COVID-19 restrictions. That was a real, terrible burden that many had to endure.

But having to wait, at least for me, allowed me to make the most of it by finding comfort in relationships.

Nothing is perfect — no family ever is — but it was great to see my group make the most of it.

It’s what families do.

Alpena native Jeremy Speer is the publisher of The Courier in Findlay, Ohio, The Advertiser-Tribune in Tiffin, Ohio, and The Review Times in Fostoria, Ohio. He can be reached at jeremyspeer@thecourier.com or jspeer@advertiser-tribune.com.