Starting the Next Right Thing

My dad died yesterday in his sleep. This was not unexpected, but it was somewhat fast when I consider that he was calling me from the McDonalds parking lot the Saturday after Thanksgiving and then collapsed two days later and never recovered from that incident. We were praying for an easy transition, and it seems that is what he experienced. We think he died around 1:30am his time, which is when we all woke up for a moment. I laid in bed feeling like going to work was not going to be a feasible idea, my mother felt a release and went back to sleep, and my sister started crying. My brother called me at 4:30am their time to let me know that he had died and that the hospice folks were on their way to assist with things. My sister called me about 30 minutes later and we sat with our video cameras and cried together for a bit. She arranged some substitute activities for her class of second graders and then went over to the house to be there with my mother. It was my mother's birthday.

I sat around my house, thinking about my dad and how much I will miss him, but most of my tears have already been cried. I'm this way in the process of mourning - I cry violently in private and then can dry up when I have to be around for other people. I shared some tears with my sister but was able to be strong for my mom yesterday. As I sit here, writing about all of this, I am crying again, but my tears aren't coming in a storm. They are coming slowly. I know that there will be times when I will be overwhelmed with grief. I ended my phone call with Mom by saying "Bye, Dad - I mean, Mom" and then burst into tears as soon as I hung up the phone.

We're not having a service as such. My dad didn't want us to have a funeral, so we are honoring his wishes. His body will be cremated in his favorite Kansas Jayhawks shirt (his alma mater and my own - I gave him that shirt) and with a blanket that was his when he was little that he still used to sleep with. I hope that we have a time to gather together to memorialize him, but I am not sure when that will be. Mom mentioned something to my sister about maybe having a service in a year, and that would be fine for me. I do want an opportunity to be with my family as we celebrate his life and his legacy.

After my OT appointment yesterday, I got home and called my mother. We had a good talk about what had happened since I had spoken to her the day before. We reminisced. She told me that his last words to his twin sister were, "That's my sister," when she told him how she would have been there earlier but lost her Kindle, panicked, and missed her connecting flight. After that, he did not speak to her again. They went through the ritual of telling him that he could let go of this life when he was ready, and then he did. I know that he wanted to be at home and not in a facility. He had a fear of most things medical and being in a hospital would have been the worst transition for him. I am glad that he let go in his sleep and that he was able to be surrounded by loved ones.

Shortly after I hung up with my mother, I got onto Zoom for a meeting with her estate lawyer. She is very anxious about being able to afford things and has no knowledge of what the finances are, so she insisted that we keep this appointment. My sister and I were both present on the call and had a chance to talk over some of our questions as well. This is a new lawyer since the one that Mom and Dad used to set up their trust either retired or died - I am not sure which - so we all got to meet him at the same time. He basically told us that Mom didn't have to worry - there was enough in the trust to keep her going for a long time - and that we have to find as much information as possible about money. Mom is panicked that her monthly income is going to evaporate because Dad died, but there is enough money in the trust to support her as long as she lives. She's in good health (relatively) and is still very active, so we anticipate that she will be around for a long time. Her mother lived to be 96, her grandmother lived to be 101 - there are lots of long-lived women in her gene pool, and she shows every intention of enjoying her retirement and her current home as long as possible.

After the Zoom meeting, I called back just to formulate some strategies with my sister about accessing information and then I talked to my Aunt and then finished with my Mom. It is now time to go to work and get going on the next thing on my list - getting vaccinated for COVID. I think my groups today will be video-based. I don't think I can do much live musicking, so we are going to bring out as many washable things as possible, and watch Pixar shorts. They are my go-to videos for these types of days - all music based and just plain old fun. Some kids can toss balls, others can make drum domino runs, and others can color. Some will just sit and watch, and that is fine as well. I think I can do that and will then go get my vaccination. If that goes without any sort of complication, I will head back home to continue to work on the next thing on my list of things to do. That's what we do. We do the next right thing.

There will still be tears. There will be snickers and guffaws as well, though, as we remember my Dad's life with both sadness for the fact that he has left us and with celebration that we got to share in that life as long as each of us did.

Thank you for being here.