Please accept my condolences regarding your uncle. Be glad that he's in a better place, and be glad that, as demonstrated at the funeral and burial, he lives on in the memory of many people whose lives he touches. There are people who won't even get last respects from family.

As for the gates of hell opening, they all lead to the same place no matter how we describe hell. It could be how the ancients described it, or the cultures of Africa and the pre-Columbian Americas, or the 20th Century horrors inflicted on humanity in the form of wars and political repression, or the legal and bureaucratic banalities and insanities relayed to us by Franz Kafka.

It's always an ordeal to deal with travel-related problems, especially if they were "this|close" to death. I'm glad you and everyone else making the trip to honor your late uncle are safe from a situation which could have ended even worse. With no ideas on how to deal with it, all I can suggest is to take things moment by moment and to deal with the emotions and feeling as they arrive.

Please accept this slice of !PIZZA for momentary comfort food, a bit of !LUV, and some !LOLZ because these are the times we can use them the most.