Good Words

The memorial service went very well. My sister picked good speakers. It was helpful to me to hear good things about my father that had nothing to do with his role as a father.

I think we had about 80 people in attendance. Many, if not all, familiar faces. I met our lawyer in person for the first time, which was odd. I had invisioned a pink-faced slightly chubby and perhaps balding man in his forties. But no. He was a rather slim, nice-looking young man with a full head of hair, who looked to be in his middle thirties. (Rather my preferred demographic, come to think of it.)

My cynical wise-cracking aunt started sobbing when we said good-bye. Who knows if or when we'll see one another again.

It has been a crazy emotional rollercoaster ride of a trip so far. I had a text message from Mr. WPY saying (I suppose entirely conventionally) that his thoughts were with me, and the kindness of this gesture just flattened me with gratitude.

There's more ~ much more ~ to say about all of this, but I'm exhausted and wrung out and typing lengthy entries on my iPhone is not ideal. We'll see whether I can muster the wherewithal to communicate more of it when I get home.

Yes, these glamourpusses are my siblings

So tired

Another fun-filled day. Back-breaking sifting through artwork. Familial sturm und drang.

I did have lunch with lifelong friend J., which was a bright spot in my day.

Tomorrow is the memorial service and reception. I hope to get through it in one piece. For an admitted control-freak such as myself, it is difficult to sit back and let other people run things ~ especially if I would have handled them much differently (and better! Of course! :P).

I am trying to detach, detach, detach. Yeah. Wish me luck with that.

(Two days of no poker whatsoever. It's fine, but ~ you know ~ I wouldn't mind a game.)

Thank God for Alcohol

Anybody who knows me knows that I'm not much of a drinker. But frankly the two extremely strong Gibsons I had with dinner tonight in the bosom of my family were ~ how shall I say? ~ sanity preservers. It's been a rough day.

I don't know what it is about my childhood environment that prompts such a strong reaction, but combined with another delve into the parental legacy - well let's say I was pretty much an emotional basket-case by mid-afternoon.

Goddam I can't wait for this to be over.

And now for the bad news...

The prospective employer did not get the government contract. No job for me. It sucks, but there's nothing to be done about it.

I'm flying to Boston on Wednesday to deal with family stuff for about a week, including my father's Memorial Service. I am not looking forward to it.

Gritting teeth, hoping for the best.

One Possible Explanation

I have long since traced my attraction to youthful men back to my childhood adoration of my brother.

At the gym, a further thought crossed my mind, and this thought made frightening amounts of sense to me. What if, say, as a child I perceived my father as a threat of some sort ~ whether accurately or not doesn't really matter for the sake of this discussion. Let's say I perceived him as somehow emotionally (and sexually?) unsafe. And let's say also that I perceived my brother as emotionally nurturing (which he was) and entirely safe (ditto).

Why wouldn't I adore him? Why wouldn't my little psychological bird-brain imprint on him as an appropriate type to become attached to? From my childhood to my adolescence my brother, who is ten years older than me, was my model of a good guy. My image of a good guy was formed around a young man of no more than about 28 years of age.

And wouldn't it then make sense that I would rarely, if ever, be attracted to older, or older-looking or -acting men? They remind me of my father. The only man I've ever dated who was older than I (by all of five years) was 25 at the time.

It's not at all clear what, if anything, I can do with the additional insight. But there it is.

Nihil nisi bonum

I just spent about twenty minutes on the phone talking with the obituary writer for the Boston Globe. I surprised myself by being able to hold forth expansively and positively about my father and his life as an artist and a husband.

The obit writer was a lovely guy, with just the right pitch in eliciting information and expressing sympathy. I imagine that writing obituaries is a fascinating and rewarding job for a person with the sensibility for it. I think I'll hunt around for some of his other work.

When we were finishing up, he asked me if I wouldn't mind saying what I did for a living. I told him. He said, "That's interesting. You're an unusually eloquent speaker." At which point I thanked him and mumbled something about a fondness for words.

This telephone conversation was the most rewarding interaction concerning my father I can remember since... well, maybe EVER.

And you shall know us by our trail of tears...

Or, in the case of my sister and me, by our shopping binges and casino visits, respectively.

My sister's reaction to the experience of attending my Dad's cremation was to go berserk with retail shopping. Generally, she keeps to thrift stores and is very frugal. On Tuesday, she hit up half a dozen mall stores, spending like a fiend (to the point where her credit card company later contacted her to ensure she wasn't a fraud victim). I kept her company for a couple of hours, but I couldn't get psyched up for that particular brand of fun, and eventually left her to her own devices.

I, of course, went off to the Sandia Casino to play poker for four hours. Fortunately, I had a good session (not card dead or hideously outdrawn, for once). I more than doubled up my buy-in at 1-2 no limit.

Since returning home on Wednesday I've been exhausted and wrung out and spectacularly unproductive. I also managed to be unnecessarily snarky as my siblings debated the contents of the death notice. Apparently, I have issues. Who woulda thunk it?

I would also like to note that the user experience of cremation (for mourners, of course, not the deceased) is appallingly bad. This is the second time I've been through it, and I was once again outraged by how awful it was.

Your last experience of a loved one should not include someone dressed in shabby janitorial clothing. It should not involve machines that look like they more properly belong in a Nazi concentration camp or an execution chamber on death row.

While I'm sure there are some engineering and safety issues to be dealt with, there is simply NO EXCUSE for how poorly this extremely significant moment in vulnerable people's lives is handled.

It made me quite angry, and reminded me how put off I'd been by a similar experience at my Mom's cremation. I wonder if there are "high end" cremation facilities that manage to do this better. Because there is a lot of room for improvement.

To Albuquerque

I've decided I need to be present for my Dad's cremation; it's not right to have my sister deal with it alone. I'm flying to Albuquerque this evening, and will return on Wednesday.

Gone

My father died at 9:30 am this morning in Albuquerque, NM. My sister says she was told his passing was swift and painless, as he sat at the breakfast table.

I am stunned by how upset I am by this. I expected to feel nothing but relief. Remember, I prayed for his death. Instead, my heart is aching, I am weeping, and I am very, very sad.

Look at that picture. That man was younger then than I am now. He really enjoyed infants and toddlers; I was still wonderful in his eyes at that age. I wish I could have had a conversation with that guy. We have a lot in common, it turns out.

There will be no holding hands and singing kumbaya, ever, in this life. What a shame.

Rattled

I had a night of vivid dreams recently. I hadn't had a flying dream in ages, and this one had flying in it. Even better, it wasn't the version where I can only fly when no one is looking at me and it's really hard work. This was flying as freedom and power.

I don't really recall what the narrative of the dream, if any, was.

But there was a very odd segment in the middle of it. I was in the bathroom, brushing my teeth. The sink was at the level of my chest. My father was sitting on the lid of the toilet next to the sink. He was naked, with a towel in his lap. When I spit out my mouthful of toothpaste, he reached up and pushed down on my head, as if to bring me to my knees and pull my face toward his crotch.

I said, "No!" forcefully, and pulled away.

And that was the end of that segment, as best I can remember.

Well. I really don't know what to make of that. I've never had a dream remotely like it before. I have no reason to believe I ever experienced anything like it in my waking life. Nothing new or different is going on in my life that would prompt such a dream, as far as I know. Maybe it's the equivalent of a psychic burp, and it means nothing whatsoever. But it definitely disturbs me and I haven't been able to get it out of my head for several days now.

Second Thought, Best Thought

After getting a second opinion from the nursing home's resident doctor, my sister has ~ thank god ~ decided that it is better for my father to remain in hospice care. There will be no amputation; there will be no surgery.

While not something to be actively glad about, this still comes under the heading Doing The Right Thing. I am relieved.

I can't sleep

It's 5 AM and I can't sleep.

My father's been moved to a nursing home. His condition has deteriorated to the point where the assisted living facility could no longer cope. My sister says the new place is nice, the staff is great, the food is good and so on. (It ought to be, it's twice as expensive.)

Now my sister is saying that she feels as if my Dad shouldn't be in hospice care. He's never been happier, she says. (What??) She's thinking now that maybe it would be better for him to have a double amputation of his legs rather than let his circulatory problems run their course (which ultimately is blood poisoning from gangrene, not to put too fine a point on it).

"Old people adjust just fine to amputations," she assures me. "He's already confined to a wheelchair anyway."

My mind is reeling. This is a once six-foot-tall man who now weighs 125 pounds. He has emphysema. And probably an undiagnosed cancer (she hasn't wanted to do the tests to find out for sure). He is senile and getting worse. He can no longer really even feed himself.

And she wants to cut off his legs?

Why????

So he can live half a year longer, even more incapacited than he is currently? So that she can feel less guilty about him "rotting inside?" So that he can spend weeks recovering, either in pain or doped to the gills? Or so he can die on the operating table instead?

In what universe is amputation not a physically and psychologically traumatic experience? (And where does the intervention stop? When his hands too become totally numb and suffer circulatory collapse will she favor removing them as well?)

I cannot conceive of it ever being my father's choice, were he in his right mind. Of course if he were in his right mind, we could ask him and get a meaningful answer. But we can't. My sister is my father's health proxy. The decision is up to her. But I am deeply, deeply distressed by this prospect. It is making me nuts even thinking about it.

I am now actively praying for my father's pre-emptive death, frankly, so that he can be spared either of these alternatives. Imagine how happy I am with myself about that. It is unbearable.

I can't sleep.

Cake & Mirrors

It was a long and confusing story. Something of a collage, made up perhaps of three or four narratives of separate events, now woven together into one dreamlike improvisation. There was a photographer, a contest of some sort, idiots in the army, and an unspecified but
very clever illusion involving cake and mirrors. The dinner guests laughed and were entertained, and he enjoyed their reaction.

I don't think he really knows who I am anymore. He hasn't said my name once.

Family Obligations

A week from Thursday I'll be getting on an airplane to Albuquerque. I'll be there for just about three days. Needless to say, it's no vacation. There are a bunch of convergent circumstances.

My two aunts will be there. Cousins will be there. My niece will be there from London. Of course my sister and her husband will be there in a semi-hosting capacity.

And, obviously, my Dad will be there. My senile, increasingly feeble and fragile father who, my sister informed me the day before yesterday, has been approved for hospice care at the assisted living facility where he resides.

"What?!?" I sputtered. This was the first I'd heard of such a notion.

I know what hospice means. I was the person who arranged it for my mother as she was dying of pancreatic cancer. I know it means the recipient is not expected to survive more than six months.

My sister tried to persuade me (and herself?) that it's just that they're generous with hospice care in New Mexico. That it didn't mean what I thought it meant.

Of course it does. He doesn't have any single diagnosed terminal illness, but for a doctor to recommend it he must be clearly and systemically failing. That's what the term "co-morbidity" ~ which my sister tossed off as if it were benign ~ really means.

So I'm going to NM in a timely fashion. Mixed feelings doesn't begin to cover it. Once again I'll get to be the sole lucky member of my family who isn't in blissful denial. Oh goodie.

The Denim Apron

In the midst of all the stressors, there was only one thing that brought me to the verge of tears. Hanging in the back of a crowded storage area I came upon one of my mother's old dark blue denim work aprons. It was lightly soiled with dried clay and a few other less identifiable substances. It reminded me vividly of my mother's life as a working artist. I sniffed, hoping to catch a lingering whiff of her scent, but there was only dust.

Like most everything else, the apron went into the dumpster ~ officially trash. And a little piece of my heart was broken.

Anticipatory Nostalgia

I had my first pang tonight. Coming into the studio, smelling that peculiar combination of old dried clay and plaster dust, it suddenly came home to me how unique, how irreproducible this place is ~ and how there will never be anything like it in my life again. I wonder if, in selling this place, I am somehow betraying a whole way of life, one rhat I myself perhaps gave up on too easily.

Tomorrow will be the first of several days of throwing things out ~ it's going to be a veritable orgy of discardation. And I'll feel the pain of it as of knives whose tips have been dipped in resentment.

Who am I? What am I doing? What will I become?

Back to Boston One More Time

I'm off in a few minutes to the airport.

I'm headed back to Boston to clear out my parents' studios, get everything into storage, and close on the sale. My sister will be joining me. I expect it to be another physically and emotionally exhausting passage.

I'll be very glad when this is done and I can concentrate on getting the financial matters in order.

Not to mention dealing with my own life: job, taxes, kitten, whatever.

My mantra: this too shall pass, this too shall pass.

Strange Communion

A decade ago, we went to Cape Cod to scatter some of my mother's ashes. (My father insisted on retaining most of them. He wants us to mingle my mother's and his own when he dies.)

At the beach, each of us had a small handfull of ashes. I waded into the ocean, and prepared to cast them into the water. I was overcome with a primal urge. With my back shielding my actions from the rest of my family, I opened my hand and touched the tip of my tongue to the scant heap. The taste was bitter and harsh, and the texture unexpectedly gritty and very unpleasant. The act seemed at once wildly transgressive and absolutely essential.

I cast the ashes out away from me out onto the gentle ocean swells. I leaned and rinsed my mouth out with seawater.

Much later, in a conversation with my sister, I learned she had done the exact same thing. I wonder how common this behavior is.

I was reminded of it by this. Richards has since retracted the comment. But as for me, I believe it. There is some primitive impulse to incorporate our beloved dead into our own living substance.

Obligation

Tomorrow morning I'm flying to Boston to deal with The Artistic Legacy as best I can. I am not looking forward to it all. I'll do what I can, which won't be all that fabulous.

I'm lucky to have wonderful friends who will help ease the experience somewhat.

Still, I hate the whole business.

I'm not sure how much internet access I'll have. Please, keep a good thought for me over the next week or so.

Everything that can go wrong...

...is going wrong.

Man, I hate this.

My sister, whose 60th birthday is today, is having a horrible stomach flu. She is freaking out about everything. She's now reconsidering taking my father with her to New Mexico. She moved her departure forward by three weeks, and has no time to get together his documentation and is worried that they won't let him on the plane with an expired passport for ID.

There are lawyers everywhere, but talking to them is a nightmare.

My work life is a nightmare. I can't concentrate, and I feel like a complete and utter failure.

I have eight loads of laundry to do but I can hardly bring myself to shower and change out of my pajamas.

This is not a good time.

Miles to Go...

Still so much to be done... actually, most of the hard stuff. We've really only just barely begun to deal with this. I will have to come back several times to get through it all.

But there is a possible ray of light at the end of the tunnel. It turns out that there may have been one successful moment of estate planning that means that my siblings and I will see a small portion of family legacy after all. And it may be that this can be realized before my father dies, without in any way being a detriment to providing for and ensuring his well-being and comfort for the rest of his days.

It might, for example, mean that I could afford to become a full-time student.

The very possibility turns this work from being an utterly thankless burden into one that may have some actual material benefit associated with it. And, crass creature that I am, it makes these relentless, enormous, emotionally and physically exhausting set of tasks just a wee bit less catastrophically unpleasant.

Not much less, but a little less. And I can't begin to tell you how thankful I am for that narrow sliver of daylight.

Sick & Tired

It's a miracle that my sister and I haven't murdered each other yet. I want, more than anything else in the world, for this to be over. And it's not going to be, not for a long, long time. There is so much work yet to be done.

When I get home, and I recover from this, I am going to get medieval on my own paper nightmare. Words cannot express the loathing I have developed for PILES OF PAPER. Let's be clear: They. Are. Satan.

My new personal motto: "When in doubt, throw it out."

[I had written three more paragraphs of whining and complaining and woe-is-me, but I think I'll just skip it. You don't need to read it, and my writing it doesn't really make anything better. This too shall pass.]

Do This Now

Do you have children, or a family whom you love?

Do this now: put your life in order. Put the important stuff in one, clearly-marked place, and tell people where it is in writing.

Throw most of your stuff out. Ask yourself, every time you are tempted to squirrel something away, "Why am I saving this? Who will have to deal with it later if I don't deal with it now?"

Do not leave piles of crap for your loved ones to sort through. If you want a legacy of your life or work, prepare it yourself and put it in the hands of people who both can and want to perpetuate it.

My sister and I are wading through the detritus of our parents' lives. It is exhausting, physically and emotionally. It has long since ceased to be a labor of love; at this point it is a labor of necessity and resentment. We are both at the ends of our tethers, and we no longer care what they would have wanted. Because clearly they spent NO TIME AT ALL preparing for this eventuality.

Many, many more hours of logistical stuff having to do with money and health care lie ahead of us. Many, many more hours of sifting through STUFF remain. I'm leaving Wednesday afternoon, and we're just not going to be done by then. Which means I'll have to come back. OH GOODIE.

I am sick and worn out. More than anything, I want all this to be over.