December 15, 2008

Dear Dad,

What the hell, eh? You’ve been gone almost three days and—what?! Dad’s gone?! Yeah, it hardly seems possible. It hits me occasionally and, let me tell you, when it hits, it hits HARD. Never before has this “life is not fair” shit been so real. I mean, seriously, who took better care of himself than you did? Fruit, exercise, repeat. WHAT THE FUCK? I mean hell. WHAT THE HELL?

I’ll admit, my first reaction was to be sort of pissed at God about this whole thing. But, you know? It’s brought me closer to Him. We spent a lot of time in the chapel praying for you…not that we needed to be in the chapel to pray or reserved our prayers for the chapel only, but there was a comforting vibe there. The more time I spent there, the more I convinced myself/God convinced me/you somehow convinced me, that the Big Guy knows what He’s doing and everything happens for a reason. We’ve spent a lot of time speculating just what that might be. There are lots of maybes. We’ll get to those later. Man alive, there are a lot of things I want to tell you. Need to tell you.

Your chitlins are all having a pretty tough time with this. Mike cries hard at night and in the mornings, but he’s trying to stay strong for all of us. He’s being our rock, just like he promised you he would. He’s having a really tough time with the fact that Taylor will never know you, as we all are. I know how much you loved that kid and, holy shit, do I wish you had more time with her. She gets a little smarter and funnier every day. You would piss your pants if you saw her blowing her nose on command, whether or not there’s a Kleenex anywhere near her. She really winds up and gives ‘er hell. She’s also been beating the shit out of Red with her “fake plow” which puts smiles on our faces. Okay, my face. Mike and Amanda would probably discourage her from that violence but this is hard on all of us and making Red her whipping doll is just Taylor’s way of dealing with the grief. Who are we to judge?

Red, like me, doesn’t have a harder time at any particular point of the day. All times of the day are equally hard. We tend to burst into tears whenever anybody comes over and hugs us or we see or smell your clothes. We just went to wash some clothes (which, btw, I meant to NEVER wash clothes here again, so thanks for that) and found a pair of your Lees. Cried our eyes out. I’ve already claimed your last shopping list and last two drivers licenses for myself. Do you think Nic would mind if I moved ALL of your stuff in?

Red is also taking care of your chickadees. Being in the hospital was so stressful and tense because it seemed every time we allowed ourselves to wander more than a few feet from the ICU, somebody was calling us telling us to come back because a doctor was waiting to talk to us. Every single time they came, we expected the worst. Red and I were sitting in the chapel with mom on the last morning, crying and praying for God to take really good care of you and mom exclaimed, “Oh my God!” Umm, panic much? “Nobody’s feeding the birds!” That’s it? You have no idea how happy I was to hear that nobody was feeding the birds. Mom made it seemed like it was something much, MUCH worse. You’re shocked, right? Tell me you’re shocked. You thought I never liked the birds anyway. To be honest, I never disliked them and now I like them more than ever because Taylor really digs Grandpa’s birds. Gotta keep Taylor happy.

Taylor’s doing her damnedest to keep our spirits up, but this is really hard on her too. She spent a couple of days at Melissa’s house while we were in Duluth and has been staying at the house here in Tower since then. She sleeps in the pack and play in Mike’s room and her schedule has been just totally uprooted, jumbled all around, and dropped in a big ol’ mess on the floor. The first night, Mike talked about how happy you would have been to have Taylor staying at the house. Why didn’t we all come spend a weekend together at the house earlier? Why didn’t we look through all the pictures with you when you were alive? Why, why, why? Also, I can’t tell you how confusing it is to be excited to see everybody that’s coming up for the funeral but simultaneously completely broken hearted because you won’t be there to see them too.

Lots of people have been sending their love and food and beverages (non-alcoholic, of course, don’t they realize that if ever we needed a beer, this is the time?!). Travis has been amazing through all of this—offering to keep feeding the fire, plowing the driveway, stopping by to see us three times a day. Every time we thank him, he tells us you would have done the same and it’s true. It’s so freaking true.

Your body is being cremated before the funeral. We met with Beans and Judy yesterday to go over all the funeral bologna and I’m so happy we have them to help us through this. If I had to step foot in a funeral home feeling like this, they’d probably have to take ME out on a stretcher…or at least make me breathe into a paper bag.

I wanted to have an open casket and then have you cremated after the funeral but I think I was giving Beans too much credit, assuming he’s a corpse miracle worker. You did NOT look like you in that hospital bed. In fact, if they’d set me loose in the ICU and told me to find Dad, I don’t think I would have been able to. You were puffy and full of tubes and blech. Just not my dad. For some reason, I assumed that Beans could drain all the extras out and make you pretty, just like I remember you. I suppose I wanted that open casket for myself, so you’d look like YOU in my very last memory of seeing you, whether dead or alive.

Let’s be honest, you weren’t actually alive at any point when you were in the hospital. If brain dead is clinically dead, you died when you went into cardiac arrest. Sure, they made your ticker tick again and, with a lot of medical encouragement, most systems were go, but you were gone. They just had to wait a day to confirm that assumption. The neurologist told us that you were in no pain, that you were completely unaware of everything going on around you. You couldn’t feel, you couldn’t see, you couldn’t hear. Okay, maybe they can convince me that you didn’t feel when we held your hand and rubbed your arms and legs and touched your head. I’ll buy that. It didn’t feel like you anyway. You felt like cool plastic, not like a person and certainly not like the man who was the most important person in my life for twenty-seven years. I do not, however, believe that you didn’t hear anything we said. Even if you weren’t in your body, you were in that room somewhere and you were laughing at the stories Red and I told you.

Taylor says hi. I just heard it. I’m sure she was talking to you. Red and I both feel like you’re in the room with us whenever we bring her down to ride Barney. You so looked forward to her getting excited about her riding that horse. I’m glad you lived to see that day. She now hugs and kisses him and, when SG the pushover brings her down, she also stands on him, riding him circus-style. Maybe your first grandchild will live out your circus dreams, huh? Here’s hoping.

Today I have to call the county to talk to the benefits manager about…well, everything. It sucks and I feel like it’s too early and I’m certainly not ready to have this conversation yet, but all those county friends of yours are saying it needs to be done right away. Oh well, I’d probably never be ready to have that conversation, right? Shit has to get done. Mike’s going to help me make a list of things I need to ask. I wish he was the one calling because he’s more coherent right now and has a better memory and understands this stuff better but I know the benefits manager, so I’m it.

Red is having a really tough time with the idea of being alone in her apartment when this is all said and done. Mike has Amanda and Taylor. I have Nic. Now that you and God are close, personal friends, maybe you could ask him to send somebody special Red’s way. Smart, ambitious, good sense of humor, dislike of alcohol…you know the requirements.

We just went shopping for funeral clothes. I brought mine from Duluth, of course, but Red obviously didn’t anticipate needing funeral clothes as she thought she was just coming up to visit you in the hospital. Again with the not expecting this. Damn it. Mom got a new funeral outfit too. Not only is it adorable (I know!) but she got a hell of a deal on it. We are trying to instill fiscal responsibility in her. And fashion responsibility. She told me I can choose her wedding outfit.

Speaking of the wedding, I am very bothered by the fact that you’re not going to be present. I mean, sure you’ll be there in spirit, but a spirit can’t very well walk me down the aisle and dance to “In My Life” with me. When I found out how serious your infliction was, the wedding was actually one of my first thoughts. I felt awfully guilty for having such selfish thoughts but I didn’t want you there JUST for me. I wanted all of my new family to get to know you because, let me tell you, they are missing out by having never met you. I also wanted you there because I know what a good time you would have had. I know you were proud of me and happy that I found somebody so great to spend the rest of my life with.

Red wants you to know that you’ve given us all diarrhea. Or at least the two of us. We can’t take a solid shit to save our lives. At first we couldn’t eat at all. Now we can’t stop and it’s running right through us. I bet all the deuces are solid in heaven. You will be happy to know that we went to the Pizza Hut in Virginia for dinner though. Or maybe you won’t be happy to know it because it’s not healthy. But hey, if we’re going to hit a Pizza Hut, it might as well be that one, right? Of all the Pizza Huts we’ve gone to all over the country, that one in Virginia is by far the best…

Your death has made mom even loopier if you can believe that. The other day she told the hospital staff that we aren’t going to have a viewing because you were so unrecognizable when you died, that instead we’ll be amputating you. AMPUTATING, DAD. I’m serious. And Red seriously made a tasteless joke which I won’t even share with you. If you were watching that debacle, understand that we were laughing to make her feel better. You know Red. She’s never funny. Like I’m never sarcastic.

Mom also told somebody yesterday that the medical folks were unable to fly you to Duluth because the roads were bad. Crickets…

Meehans are here right now, but Red and I are in the bedroom, all visited out. I just heard mom tell them (as she does EVERYONE) that initially they thought it was the heart and “of course it wasn’t.” Umm, if it wasn’t your heart, what the hell was it? Red told me to just shut the door. We’re trying hard, but sometimes we feel like we might snap. And by sometimes I mean every five minutes when she’s sleeping the other four.

That’s all for tonight. Red keeps reminding me all condescendingly that you never really liked reading. What a smart ass, huh?

Know that we love you and miss the shit out of you and Red can’t bring herself to delete the pictures of the couch you wanted from her phone.

Love,
Angie