my dad died

Finally, finally, we are moving into Patio Season here.

And like the Early Riser* that I am, I’m up and at ’em this morning to write some things.

Things I actually started several evenings ago, but never seemed to circle back.

*Early Riser being the thing I’m the opposite of, and I’ll need a nap at 9 a.m. as a result of this bold move.

I don’t even know what I wrote the other night so I may as well begin anew. I do know I was going down another Dead Dad path, because I apparently have a lot lot lot of anger stored up at the folks on the peripheral of this sitch.

In the meantime, I’m practicing my positive morning mediations – which has been a giant struggle, quite frankly. I enjoy me more when I fill my jelly donut of a head with Good Vibes, but I’ve been inconsistent, which should be my middle name because being inconsistent is the one thing I’m actually consistent about.

I’ve signed up for an online writing course, beginning in June. Let’s see where that goes, Reader. I’ve got a bajillion stories bottled up in my brain, but ya know, I read so many awful books that I figure why contribute another awful book into the world. Except why not.

I’ve been working – slowly – on flower pots and herbs and shaking the storage off of the Outdoor Things. I’d like to be Done with all the Outdoor Things before I go on vacation in 2 weeks, but that’s a tall order. We have forty bags of mulch lining the front flower beds, and need to scoop up another forty more. I wanted to write a check to just have it done for me, but that warred with my cheapskate-o nature and I figure I can use the exercise anyway except I probably won’t be able to move for six days after because I’m Old and Broke Down in the knees and general below-the-belt areas.

I’m slowly working through some of my father’s things. I make a goal to do at least two things a week on that, and yesterday I did those two things.

I wanted to have a memorial service for him on Father’s Day, however that is $3000 and I do not have $3000 spare dollars lying about and so we as a collective agreed to skip that for now. He’s resting comfortably on the mantel and just watched the whole 1883 series with us and we all really enjoyed it.

I’m still pretty tweaked about the whole Florida Experience and The People Who Suck. “Friends” of my father’s and his shitty lady friend, her son and her son’s bitchass wife. Who had the actual fucking NERVE to get thisclose to my face at the funeral home and scream at me while I’m making plans for my father’s body, because I wouldn’t allow them to take my father’s body to their mother’s cemetary and bury him NOT WITH HIS WIFE and OUR FAMILY.

Yep, it’s a real thing that happened and for fuck’s sake, who does that?? These are grown people, Reader, and also the people who willfully kept my father’s things from me. He’s an ARCHITECT partner at a firm in Chicago. Behaving like that in the face of my loss. The Son, Tim, recently Fed-Ex’d an envelop of shit mail to me a couple of Sunday’s ago. I mean, literal junk mail. And a few interesting things mixed in, such as an inquiry from one of my father’s credit card companies explaining why they denied the request for a new credit card. Because I closed his account immediately, the day before they requested a new card. So they were planning some nefarious shit. Rack up $10,000 in charges that his estate – a.k.a, Me – would be responsible for.

Luckily I used the one moment I had while in my father’s house to take photos of every piece of paper I could find in his office, anything that looked like it may be important for me later, and had enough info to begin cancelling things.

I don’t know, Reader. My dad would say, “It takes all kinds of people to make up a world,” and that is a true story. You just don’t want to think you’re bringing the super shitty ones into your inner circle, which proved to be the case here.

I don’t believe in Karma. I’ve seen in my own life far too many times where the Shit Humans end up just fine. My ex-husband is one of those examples, with no remorse or even apology so it’s not as if he ever got out of the situation and looked back with regret for being so shitty. Also, I don’t believe in asking Karma to extract any revenge. To me, that’s super negative and just trying to avoid owning the being a negative b-hole yourself, but putting all your ill wishes onto Karma’s shoulders.

People don’t always get what we think they deserve. Bad people aren’t all bad. Bad people win. Good people aren’t all good. Good people lose.The best that we can hope is to make it through while keeping your head faced towards the light.

When my father died last month, I was glad I had been in the habit of practicing my morning meditations for the past couple of years.

Because I surely did need it, on so many occasions.

One very minor instance was my motel, advertised with a pool.

That dirt pit, I’m assuming, was maybe once a pool.

But ya know, onward. No big deal in the scheme of things like my dad just died.

What did require every single ounce of my patience happened directly after my father died, in his room. It’s so fucking absurd, had it not happened to me, I would find it a story hard to believe.

But it did happen. I was there.

The morning that my father died, I had just arrived back at his hospice room with my sister-in-law. I always stopped at the front desk and got the over-night report, and I was informed that he was progressing towards his final breath.

Without getting too far into the weeds, I’ll sum it up by stating that by this particular morning, my father’s “lady” friend Penny – lady being used in the loosest sense of the word – she is no lady – she is no friend of mine. She was extremely irrational the entire time I was down there and had to deal with her, and the main reason I spent little time actually at my father’s bedside. She is a very miserable person and is more so with possibly some dementia happening in her head.

But anyway, that’s not the story.

The story happened about two minutes after my father died. I watched him take his last breath, called the nurse back into the room who had just left, and one of Penny’s friends waltzed into the room carrying McDonald’s breakfast for both of them.

That’s not the story.

My father had just been pronounced dead, and the nurse shut off the oxygen machine. The friend, Rod, asked, “How’s he doing?” and the Penny stated, “He just passed,” or something of that nature. So Rod reached over, put his hand upon my father’s shoulder, said something about playing cards up in heaven with a jovial attitude, and then turned back to the lady and they started carrying on a conversation about where he had dinner the prior night – followed up by a story about shenanigans at a tiki bar on the beach – all the while getting both of their coffee’s stirred and generally carrying on.

While I was standing there at my freshly dead father’s bedside.

The nurse came back and I grabbed her and said, “You have to do something about this, please do something about this,” and she told me she’d be right back, she was getting another nurse.

In that short span, Rod opened the McDonald’s bag and passed out McMuffins for Penny and himself, and began to unwrap them.

They were going to eat their breakfast right next to my father’s body, with me standing there looking at them.

I couldn’t wait for the nurse to come back, so I asked Rod, “Can you please eat your breakfast out in the family area.”

And he looked at me, completely offended, and said, “If I’m being FORCED to, I will.”

The backstory on that comment was from the previous day. The previous day, I had to have three nurses force Penny to leave my father’s hospice room so I could spend 30 minutes alone with him and say what I wanted to say. Penny had flat-out refused to willingly leave and it was a whole scene. But she did leave, because I made her.

So now Rod – who I’d never met until that morning – had the audacity to direct his fucking attitude my way, because I had the nerve to ask him to eat his breakfast somewhere other than over my father’s dead body.

When he responded with his snarky “forced to” comment, this is where my mediative grace came in, Reader.

Because without all the work I’ve done in my brain over the past few years, I may have not responded quite so kindly. My response was merely to look him in the eye, wave my hand over my father’s body and say, “My FATHER JUST died,” while never breaking eye contact.

I would like to report he sheepishly gathered his things, but he did not. He gathered, but it was not at all contrite, and he still had an attitude that I had dared to ask him to leave my father’s hospice room.

The nurses came in shortly after and kicked me and Penny out so they could do their thing with his body. There is apparently some preparing that needs to happen. And believe it or not, I don’t think eating an McMuffin over the body is part of the prep work. But maybe in Florida. Florida is crazy.

Reader. I had planned to write this absurd story with a humorous slant, but that did not come out of my fingers. I think I’m still mad about it and would like to punch that Rod right in his McMuffin-eating face. I do not have the good graces completely mastered, Reader. I still have the instinct to be an asshole when I’m pushed. It’s hard being the person you want to be sometimes.

So many things happened during that one-week trip. People can be extremely disappointing. I was and have been very disappointed by some of the behavior directed my way. I feel betrayed by so many things that happened.

Death often brings out the worst in the people. And in some cases, I guess it brings out the breakfast sandwiches.

May Days

Would You Like Fries With That