proteanme

Day seven was about making day six’es phone calls except I had the right SS#.  And then there was this nice visit with my sister, who already had plans to be in town for my niece’s volleyball tournament, which was the best part of day seven and eight. It’s fun to watch my niece turn into a bad ass on the court. And it pleases me to know she read an email I sent to my sister extolling that exact sentiment in a heartfelt, “right the fuck on!” My niece liked that email so much she got my sister to print it out and taped the message to her wall. Then, at my sister’s request before I left the tournament, when I said good-bye to my niece, I lowered my voice and said, “that last play, right the fuck on.” My niece smiled so big and replied, “thank you.” Best damn part of day eight, the one week anniversary of my dad dying.

I left the tournament and spent the rest of day eight in bed. Feeling sick and incredibly tired. I know it could be stressed induced, but whatever. I feel better today, day nine, which is really the beginning of week two. The second week of living with a dead father. Death has not cut through the complexity of my relationship with my father. It’s added a new layer full of details I only guessed at what it would be like to deal with.  Funeral homes, coroners, financial statements, attorneys, sheriffs, and on and on and on.

On day five, I called a bunch of places with my dad’s SS#, but it wasn’t the right SS# number. Nice. Day six, I tried to call a couple of those places back, like the VA, and the call volume was so high the computer generated voice told me to call back. I’ve always hated automated phone scripts, but right now I find them particularly soul sucking. Yesterday when I called Social Security Admin, I went through this inane exchange where I kept saying my dad’s name and spelling it and the phone system kept getting it wrong. I would say Truman then spell it out, t-r-u-m-a-n, and the computer would say Tree and spell it back t-r-e-e. That sucked.

Day five was also marked by a marathon family phone conference, complete with all the things that seem normal when someone dies in a fire without leaving behind any instructions, recaps of calls with Sheriffs, Fire Marshalls and Coroners, debating different funeral plans, the random exchange of memories, doling out new tasks and scheduling the next call.

Day sisx, today, I woke up feeling sick. Went to work. Came home and tried to sleep. Without luck. I really, realy, hate throwing up. I hope I don’t.

I agree with editor B.  He summarized the historic and proud nature of today much better than I can right now. I watched the inauguration at work, sitting in the factory lunch room with a big group of employees, mostly folks from the floor. And mostly folks from the floor are immigrants. And that felt really right to me.

I talked to a Hamilton Country Sheriff today and to the Deputy Fire Marshall in Carmel.  They were very nice to me. For some reason I want to mention them here even though I thanked them on the phone.  It’s like I want to document and connect with every person who’s come into some kind of contact with my dad. The sheriff told me something I didn’t know but did not surprise me and that is my dad had been carrying around his Marine ID card in his wallet since 1946.  Of course. To me it makes perfect sense. There’s not much left of it. Not because of the fire, but because it’s 63 years old. But for my dad, it’s just like it was yesterday. That’s what my dad told me once.  It was like WWII was yesterday. This other guy, this stand up guy who was my dad’s emergency contact, and who is being soooo good to us, he told me today how my dad’s Marine unit suffered this horribly high casualty rate. Horribly high. This guy said, “your dad must have been charmed”. Funny thing was this woman said the same to me this summer, which pissed me off at the time.

Truman with James in Washington D.C.

Originally uploaded by proteanme
My sister and I are exchanging emails with subject lines, like “burial” and “obit”. It’s a mad race to mine our brains for the details we might be overlooking before we set in to motion the actual plans. And everyone’s got their way of tackling the task. My sister’s started a word doc with her list of things to do. My mom is gathering her info in an actual notebook. And me, I’ve just stapled together pieces of scrap paper with my notes and created a “dad” label in gmail and “dad” tag in delicious. Tomorrow I’ll be doing things like calling the coroner and the fire marshall and the post office and the veteran’s affairs office. But tomorrow is a historic day. And I don’t believe I’ll have much luck with any of these calls because all eyes and ears will be turned on Washington D.C. History, with a capital “H” is happening tomorrow.

But history with a small “h” doesn’t really care. Not the history that is happening in my life.

My dad grew up in D.C. Or at least grew up there until he was in high school. He lived in D.C. because he was adopted by his grandparents after his parents divorced and his mom died. His grandfather, my great grandfather, was a federal judge. And I’ve heard rumor my dad watched inaugural parades from his grandfather’s office. As an aside, I’m also proud to say (in that strange and irrational way that one takes pride in one’s ancestors and lineage) that my great grandfather was also the Dean of Howard Law School and worked to get the law school accredited.

The picture here is of my dad with James. James worked in my dad’s house. And if you asked my dad, he would tell you that James and his wife Sally helped him raise him. This might be as close to a father son photo as there is of my dad.

I was just watching Homer Simpson apologize to Lisa through  a crossword puzzle and I lost it.

I was thinking that maybe your dad doesn’t stop being your dad because he died; maybe he just becomes your dead dad.

I have learned two things today. The first is about the mysteries of life. And what I learned is that they involve a lot of phone calls. And paper work.  I always thought the great mysteries would involve something much more heroic and romantic. But apparently it’s more about figuring out who’s going to call what agency or office to track down what info. To some degree or another my family is going to be project managing my dad’s death. I am a good project manager.

The second thing I learned is that I will be getting to know my dad better in his death than I knew him in his life. Bittersweet. For sure. I learned today fifty people have already called my dad’s old boss because they want to find out if we are planning a service. I learned that there every Memorial day my dad went to Crown Hill cemetary to attend the veteran’s service and lay flowers on his cousin’s grave, the one who was like a brother to him, the one who died at Battle of the Bulge. I learned that when my dad’s best friend was sick and everyone else stopped coming around, my dad was there for his friend. He did things no one else would do for his friend. I learned my dad didn’t have a refridgerator in his house for a long time. Nothing shocking and all things I suspected. He was a nice guy. And he was one of a kind.

The thing is I’ve always intellectually understood my dad could be close, in his own way, to other people even if he couldn’t be close to us. I’ve never embraced it though. And now we’re about to be submerged. I’ve been on the periphery a couple times in my life of the phenomena that is my dad. Met some folks who were fascinated to meet me just because I was Truman’s daughter. I’ve been greeted with welcomes “no shit” and “I’ll be damned”.  Just never done it en mass.