Debt

Debt.

I’ve been assigned to go through and figure out how to handle my dad’s debt now that he’s deceased. What I find hardest about this process is that he’s not around for me to really ask any questions. And the worst thing for me is not knowing. I hate not being able to just find a solution. The other day, we were going through his personal effects and on his key chain we were identifying the keys. “okay, this is for the car… this is for the bottom lock… top lock… downstairs lock… what’s this key?” And I had to fight the phantom urge to go into the living room holding the key up and say “Daddy – what key is this?” The process to mentally resigning yourself to just not knowing is painful for me. Me who just wants to know everything.

I’m slowly realizing there’s not a whole lotta information out there for the survivors. Steps to take. Places to contact. People to consult. When I do a search on the web, seems to be a lot more information for people in the UK than here in the US. They just kind of leave us hanging wandering in the dark. I’m thinking maybe from my experience that I’ll try to forge some kind of a document. Something to let the survivors know what to do.

I’ve given myself too many projects.

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A Funny Way Of Doing It

A Funny Way Of Doing It

I was sitting at my home office desk on Friday doing some work. I was graciously granted the last two days of this week to complete some home stuff – ie moving out of my mother’s home so that my brother could move in. But before I could head over there, I had to finish my work. As usual, my hubby left the tv on in the living room and after just having a filling lunch, found his way back to the bed for a midday nap. On my way back from checking on him and tucking the sheets around him for warmth, I passed the tv which was still on and left it on. It was good for background noise. As I typed away and clicked and dragged through my various assignments, a conversation that was being held on the tv caught my attention.

“My father passed away in 1995 but even though he’s gone, I still have conversations with him in my head…”

Then there was deeper description of this conversation… I thought it would be one of those ever loving conversations where the relationship between the father and son was perfect and wonderful and everything anyone would ever hope for. But it wasn’t. It was strained. It was complicated. It was unusual and laborious. I heard the pain in the narrator’s voice and it grabbed me. I stood up and walked back in to the living room and stood a few feet from the tv with my arms crossed… riveted. It was a film short called The Moon and The Son which was being shown on cinemax at the time. An animated film describing the many questions you have left about certain people in your life when they leave or die. This was a very uncomfortable relationship between a father and son. And I felt the son’s pain. But in the conversation, the father voice in his head would always try to point out the good things… the good times. And the son acknowledged them… But he stated that the bad memories seem to be more plentiful… and heavier. The similarities between their relationship and the shared relationship between my brother and my experience with my dad were undeniable.

I watched it through to the end. I cried … but not that horrible sobbing. Just tears that ran and ran. A few minutes before it ended, my hubby came out and asked me a million times what was wrong. I told him I’d tell him after the show. And then he offered to listen quietly. I told him that I feel horrible that I don’t really know my parents. To have grown up feeling like they were on this pedastal that I could never touch. To never know them as regular human beings. Maybe to take example from their mistakes and know better… but I can’t because I don’t have the full story. Why was dad so selfish with us? The whole rest of the world thought he was this GREAT guy. I would have liked to know THAT version of my dad. Instead, we had the disciplinarian. The one who forced us to pray in front of him in the morning before school, at dinner and at night before a little shrine he made out side our room. And we’d have to be loud enough so he could hear us or he’d yell and complain… maybe even beat us. I’m sure that wasn’t the dad that all his friends knew. One woman came up to us at the wake and told us how ready and willing he was to always take them anywhere they wanted to go. He’d have the car ready and it was on. The dad I knew would complain for HOURS before taking my mom anywhere… then he’d take some assbackwards route to get there… and if there was a time constraint, my mom missed it. Store was closed. Appointment missed. And then on the way home, he’d make his hundreds of stops at friends and lottery spots and make her wait in the car.

He had a funny way of showing that he cared at all. For instance… if i mentioned that I liked Baby Ruth candy bars (which I did… to death!) he would bring home a Baby Ruth candy bar every day until I said uncle or switched up and liked something else. It was always sweets, though. Baby Ruth, Corn Pops cereal, certain kinds of ice cream. It was his way of showing that he was paying attention. But he was at such a distance. I remember watching Crash and during my favorite scene where the locksmith is talking to his daughter who is cowering under the bed because she heard a bang and he talks with her… puts the invisible cloak on her… I love that scene because it’s so touching… What I realized the other day is that I’ve never had such an extended conversation with my dad. Ever. If we had anything to say, we passed it through mom. She was the filter. Filter for his anger. Filter for my emotion. So that just the message would get through. He initiated 3 conversations with me in life.

1) To attempt to talk to me about sex when I was 20.
2) His version of an intervention for me because of my drinking at 25.
3) In March of 2005.

I do wish to have known him better. Maybe to understand why he did the things that made us think of him as less than favorable. I’m fearing not knowing my mom the same way now… She’s retreating into this painful shell and short of moving back with her, quitting my job and spending the rest of my life with her till she passes… I’m not sure what will make her normal again.

Still looking for answers.

My advice to parents out there: Don’t do gestures all day and hope that they’ll be translated. Every now and again, sweep that child into your arms… whether they’re 2 or 22… and hug them and SAY THE WORDS. I think the cure for any dysfunction lies within.

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On my way Home

On My Way Home

My first Brooklyn transit blog. I'm on my way home. The home I'm making with my new Husband – we celebrated one month on Monday. What a month!!! I have spent the most hours in peaceful bliss, quiet contentment and noisy banter and chatter with him. It's truly home to me. We've not yet uncovered all of the crazy habits that we were told would drive each other insane. There's no real divison of roles. He does what he can when he can and so do I. (Ceptin for garbage… Cause I hate it!!!) When we argue, it's short lived – we nip things immediately, because we feel like we have to & should in order to maintain that bliss. I luxuriate in his touch and presence. His company is the ultimate to me. One night, shortly after moving in, I went out on the town with the industry and was out for hours – I didn't get home until 3 or 4 am. Upon reaching home it was dark and my hubby was sound asleep, and I stood there for a while coming to terms with a new feeling – I had "missed" a night with him. I had no idea what he'd done that night because I wasn't with him… Didn't share in conversations with him… Didn't get the skinny on his day – nothing. Just his peaceful, resting body which I felt I'd disrupt now, getting into the bed with him. But I did and he immediatley wrapped his sleep warmed arms around me and returned to that peace.

I'm racing home to him now and realizing what "rush" hour really means. Instead of dreading going to your house and staying out as long as possible.. You can't WAIT for the final bell so you can rejoin the bliss at home.

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The Next Chapter

The Next Chapter.

They all seem to run together sometimes… all these chapters of this book. But I have to know when one ends and the next begins. I’m doing all I can to balance the love that I’m feeling for my new life with my new husband in our new apartment – with the grief I am feeling for my family and the loss of my father.

Last week was hard. Hardest because in the midsts of everything, my mother basically laid down and was ready to die as the plans needed to be set in place for the wake and funeral arrangements. And who better to make those plans than I? So I had to act quickly and be the one who wasn’t going to cry and lament and just make the calls, arrange the wake and funeral, call SSI, call the pension company, call the credit cards… and organize. On the phone with the life insurance company, I was pragmatic and collected until she asked me in succession for his date of birth and date of death. I rattled off the date of birth as quickly as he did: “two twenty-two thirty-two” but when I started with the date of death… and was basically relaying the date for the day before I called… I let out this… sob… I have no idea where it came from and the tears just rushed forward… and just as quickly as it started, I reigned it in so I could take care of business – I said my apologies to the woman, and continued with my train of thought. And it’s been that way ever since. Whenever I need to grieve, I’m in the middle of something else. So I can’t full on grieve.

It came to a head at the funeral. For me… it always does. Right when the priest (if it’s a Catholic funeral mass) sprinkles the baptismal water on the casket as a symbolism of the baptism we receive when we’re born. I know that as a child when we’d go to Easter mass… and the priest would go up and down the aisle and sprinkle the congregation with baptismal water, I’d feel so blessed if a drop hit me… renewed, even. But when it goes on the casket… I just think… “he can’t even feel it… and even if the casket was open… he still wouldn’t… because he’s not in that shell…” And it gets me. Every single time. A single tear turns into full on cry. But usually, I’m able to get it together before the walking down the aisle… But this time I was walking behind the casket, pushing my mom in her wheelchair…… right behind the casket. I just lost it… I couldn’t contain the tears anymore and they came rushing forward. Everyone was worried about me. They didn’t want me to drive, but I insisted that I was alright. And I was. I just needed that release. The rest of the day I was alright – just tired… being up from 5:30 AM and shuttling everyone around, signing off on paper work… things of that nature. When I finally got back home, I crashed for a few and then Max & Robin came by with a huge bottle of Goose for us to share. They helped to buffer the time I would have spent alone (my hubby was at meetings and things) thinking too hard.

The last major thing on the agenda is to move me all the way out, so that Dominic can move all the way in. Mom is starting to lose it about how she’s all alone. But I can only move so fast with all that’s on my plate. But miracles have to happen and who better to conjure them up?

*sigh*

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Lasting Images

Lasting Images

I hate… hate… hate… the final images that I’m left with of some people. Namely the people that I love.

Sometimes, I wish to have not visited them at all in the hospital, so that my final memory of them is as a vibrant, alive, fully functional human being. Because, chances are… that’s how they were when I fell in love with them. When they affected me so that they’d be in my life until the end of theirs or the end of mine. But obligation makes us visit them in the hospital every day. To show them that we’re there and that we care. And while they look at our faces unchanged… and touch our hands alive with the heat of youth (as my granny referred to it)… we gaze upon the deterioration. We stare down the Grim Reaper as he seeps his way through their pores and into their bodies and he just… slowly… nibbles them down. So that the final images that we have of our loved ones are emaciated… slack jawed… wide eyed shadows of who they really were.

The first man I ever thought of as superman (because at 4 years old, I thought that would HAVE to be the credential for someone who could hang me from his bicep and not get tired) has passed from this earth. He was NOT the best most wonderful most ideal father. But… he was my father. The 0nly one I knew. I have some precious memories. I have a lot of painful ones. And the idea that he’s no longer with us… and that he breathed his last tonight is still really seeping in. Slowly. Painfully. I’ll figure out what to say about him sooner than later. They’ll expect that I’ll speak at the funeral – although I’d rather just sit quietly and not deal with anyone. I might share my favorite memory of him.

As a child, we had a “big screen” 27 – 30 inch tv in the house. So big, it had to sit on the floor. This was before remote controls. So my dad would sit in his lounger and if he wanted to change the channel, he get to his knees, crawl over to the tv and turn the knob. I would be waiting in the shadows for that opportunity. And when he was on all 4′s… I’d LEAP onto his back and demand a pony ride. He would always oblige… and drive me once around the center table in the living room. All the while, me holding on to his ears and squealing in delight. I knew my limit was about once a day, but I always took my pleasure to do it… and until I was a little too heavy… he always obliged. They were the very sweetest moments I’d spend being Daddy’s girl and to date… my most favored memory of my dad. And the way I’d like to remember him most.

Rest in Peace, Daddy.

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