"He did pass away." Pt. I

Since the majority of my relatives behave much like I do, with a general indifference to direct requests for action, I may never receive copies of the pictures I wanted from my father's wake.  I love saying "wake" in reference to my family.  Especially since they're mostly made up of Irish (hence the crazy) and when I think of the words "Irish" and "wake" together I imagine a rockin' good time.  Ha ha ha ha ha.  Yeah but no.  I'm just going to get on with the story.


My father passed away on Sunday, January 17, 2010.  He was 79.  My niece, aka the family whipping girl, called to tell me around 9:30 that evening.  She had been given the task of calling any and everyone who might need to know. 

At that point in time it was believed that it was a subdural hematoma that caused his death.  I think that still is the main cause of death but you can also get a number of speculative responses from my sisters.  Apparently he had fallen on Friday and had been bleeding since then.  But, you know, he had a doctor's appointment on Monday so it could wait, I suppose.  My cousin Wayne had been looking in on him pretty regularly since he had begun alienating his children again and my siblings who live in the area did not like to visit him often.  My mother, who has Alzheimer's, has had to be in a nursing home for a couple of years now so he was living alone.  Wayne found him that afternoon, actually bleeding, semi-conscious and asking for help.  The details are sketchy but I think Wayne called Rick (my brother) and one of them called 911.  He was taken to the hospital where he lasted a few hours and then passed away peacefully, commenting that he was too tired to stay awake any longer.  He had simply lost too much blood and his organs could not recover no matter how much they gave him.         

I hesitate to give too much back story, it would take much too long.  Let me just say that my father was not a good man to his family.  He did many, many bad things in his life but the worst part is that I, along with most of my brothers and sisters, realize that personality-wise he was a good-time guy, a lot of people liked him.  You just didn't want to be related to him or in a relationship with him.  He was also an alcoholic and he, in combination with her own family, hurt my mother in an almost unspeakable way when she was only 16 years old.

My plan for this piece of writing is not to talk too much about the past but about what happened that week in January when I went home to Cecil County to bury my father.  Get ready to meet an interesting cast of characters.
       
Sunday night I got the call that he was dead and I just didn't know what to do.  It wasn't what I expected.  I expected it to be my mom.  Or that my nephew had done something crazy (take your pick of which one).  By choice I hadn't seen him since September of 2002, and I really didn't know what to do, what to feel.  I just sat on the couch.  Allen asked me what I wanted to do and I just kept saying "I don't know."  Monday was a holiday so I had a little time to think.  I woke up that day and knew I had to go for two reasons.  1: If I didn't go the fact that he was actually gone would never be real to me, and 2: There was cash hidden somewhere in that house.  Turns out I was not the only one who knew about the cash.  We may be from Cecil County but we're not stupid.  Monday is also the day I started to cry.  I cried because I was angry about how things had been, sad about how they hadn't been, and relieved that it was finally over.  Unlike my sister, I have not once experienced any guilt.

I decided to take the train since it was my cheapest option on such short notice and seemed much more pleasant than a bus.  My family is also lackadaisical about providing necessary details (another habit I share) so it was unclear as to whether the funeral would be Wednesday or Thursday.  I made plans to arrive Tuesday evening and stay until Friday.  I requested that Allen not come with me, feeling that this was something I needed to do on my own and also because I didn't want to (wrongly or rightly) feel like I had to keep him entertained or rush back to Pittsburgh too soon.

My sister Ruth and her family from Virginia as well as my brother Ken from out near Seattle also arrived on Tuesday.  Ken, who, like me, is married, chose to come alone as well.  My brother Rick sort of snorted at me and seemed incredulous when I told him that I had purposely asked Allen not to come and his absence was not an indication that our marriage was falling apart like his recently has.  He was just being all around weird that week anyway, not that he's usually normal (big fan of conspiracy theories and aliens, it would seem).  Rick had offered to drive me to the train station in Philly Friday morning but when I ended up telling him Chris (my nephew) would do it he asked me if it was because I was "afraid" to go with him.  Well, when you ask me questions like that, yeah, I kinda am.  I understand that Rick would probably like to talk to me but I also understand that Chris (not sure if he'll read this) REALLY needs to talk to me.  Rick and I have had about 17 years of not talking, a little more time won't hurt.    

The viewing/funeral was on Wednesday.  I'm normally an anxious person so as you can imagine I literally thought I was going to combust.  I am not good at funerals, they're so unnatural and sterile and just weird.  To make it worse, no one at my sister's house drinks coffee so I was coffee-less, anxious, and nearly in a panic but when my sister offered me Ativan I was afraid to take a whole one.  I made her cut it in half because I didn't know what it would do to me.  Control freak.  Turns out I probably could've used a handful. 

End Part I.  To be continued on Monday.