For me it was more personal than a giant green monster stomping on buildings…
Mom died.
I had been in Washington DC… sitting in libraries, visiting nieces, nephews, and the kids… I flew home Tuesday night… Tuesday March 8th… Wednesday morning Dad called at 7:00 as we were waking… Mom had died. It was a shock but not a surprise, but it was not expected. I had already had plans to visit a week later… plans changed.
I think I walked around in shock for a while…
Tina took on the problem of finding flights and reservations… I hadn’t been at work for a week… there were things that needed to be checked… I had unpacked the night before, but mostly had filled the hamper with laundry… I checked email…
Tina found flights… for both of us. I drove to work, spent a half an hour… made calls, answered emails, checked in… then drove home… packed… laundry had been done in my absence…
We had a flight to catch… a 11:05 flight… a flight 4 hours after we found out…
You really need to be at the airport an hour ahead… they can refuse luggage 4 minutes out or so… I dropped Tina 45 minutes before our flight, then parked the car, but forgot my carry on’s… then went back, gathered carry on’s… cleared security, and made for the gate…
The night before, I spent 5 or so hours on a plane west bound… now it was 2 hours eastbound to Denver… a wait… then on east…
We found a place to eat in the Denver airport… elk medallions eaten with plastic silverware… and a bottle of wine, and a scotch… I am looking for a crutch.
Back in line… for the flight to Tampa… more hours on an airplane… We are about the last to board… we only booked this morning… In the Southwest system, we are “C”’s
A very nice lady takes pity on us and changes seats with me and we get to sit together…
We arrive a bit after 10:00 pm… in a thunder storm… tossing the plane about… exciting and probably scary for some… but all is well… we land… we deplane… take a breath…
Dad has a friend picking us up… by now he has been up for 48 hours… he is in no condition to drive… John, the friend, drives for a limo service… he finds us, takes care of us… well… I don’t realize how much I needed it…
We arrive at the house about 11:30 (EDT) about 11 hours after we found out… Dad awakes… we sit and talk for a while… we all go to bed, but I suspect none of us sleep well…
The next morning we rise… coffee… Dad and I sit and read the newspaper with coffee… much like other visits… not that much is said… I think we are establishing a normalcy… A place we both are comfortable in… Tina sleeps in…
People stop by, there are telephone calls, discussions of what should be done… who needs to be called…
I break into mom’s computer, find the address list, and look for my uncle’s phone number… I send some emails to family… Dad is ok, but has trouble talking to people… the closer he is to them, the harder the conversation… I call my uncle and break up when telling him… I guess we are a lot alike…
As we talk to people, we mark them off a mental list… its harder than expected and dad in particular is relived when he gets to leave a message, talking to a machine, not a human… humans are still to close and too hard.
We deal with more as time goes by… by late Wednesday, stuff is starting to come under control… By Thursday the obituary is written and sent off, one to friends via email, another to the funeral home… a third to our daughter…
We make dinner… we eat… we take a collective deep breath…
Late in the day there is a remote distraction… An earthquake, followed by a tsunami hits northern Japan… It is bad… we watch the evolving news coverage… we search the web… people elsewhere are suffering more than we are… I think that it makes it easier for us… we are distracted…
We continue with life with the news on in the background. Dad ships pigeons to the race… We make dinner… we go to bed…
We awake to a new day, and increasingly dire coverage of the earthquake… the pigeons come home… Dad does well… 4th place among 1,600 pigeons…
Life continues in the shadow of death…
I am starting to slip into black humor… I write an alternate obituary… “Betty Hees, She got old, she died, get over it… thanks for your thoughts” I only send it to my daughter, Betty’s grand-daughter… she knows and understands me… I read it to dad… he laughs…
Tina and I go looking for lunch and new bedding… (Dad threw the sheets that were on the bed when she died away)… We find lunch in Bayport… a long time old style Florida road house with bar, deck, former whore house out back, motorcycles out front and an alligator in the canal… a big gator… we eat grouper sandwiches and drink beer…
We look for new bedding without success… we will turn to an online retailer…
Home… dinner again (my brother has left us wells stocked with shrimp and scallops…) watching the continuing coverage of the Japanese disaster… Issues with their nuclear reactors are increasingly severe…
Dad goes to bed… he is starting to relax… starting to crash… Tina goes to bed… So far I am not tired… it is probably as much emotion as anything else…
I need to go to bed… good night…
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