Back From England

March 21, 2008

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So, this is my first day back, after my trip to England due to my Dads sudden and very unexpected death.

I am really jet lagged and tired, with the 8-hour time difference and the fact that it took 23 hours door to door.

Here are a few random thoughts and some of the lighter moments.

It was amazing how much there is to do. My parents’ affairs were in great shape and well organized. My Dad’s dad died suddenly (industrial poisoning) when my Dad was 12, so he was very aware of the effects of a sudden death. So even with everything well organized and documented there were still many questions and so many agencies to notify, letters to write and other stuff. One of my resolutions is to organize and document all my stuff.

There are so many questions too. My Mother was rather overwhelmed. What music do you want? What flowers do you want? Want kind of coffin? What time do you want the service? Who do you want to invite? What should we do about this? What should we do about that?

We had a private family funeral. It was nice to have an intimate group who all knew him really really well. It made it special. I would do the private funeral and then later a memorial service/event, next time.

My Mum is one of those people who want you to make the phone call, but then hovers around telling you what to say. Organizing a caterer for the food after the funeral, she hovered around and kept telling me to make sure that the caterer knew that there were going to be children present. I relayed this to the caterer. Turned out what she wanted to put across was that there were kids with healthy appetites. The caterer took this to mean we wanted kids food. So after the funeral we were drinking champagne to celebrate my Dads life and eating children’s party food.

We suggested to my mother that it would be a good idea to join the AA (the UK equivalent of the AAA) now that she would be driving around by herself. We went online and signed her up. About 2 hours later I went out to move the car, and looked at it, and thought, “It is listing, did I park it in a hole?” The car had a completely flat tire. Felt too embarrassed to call the AA right after joining, so one of my brothers and I took it to a local garage to get if repaired. This stuff always happens at the most inconvenient times.

On my suitcase I had a TSA approved combination lock. Flying back, rough handling of the suitcase bent the lock. So when I got home last night, I could not open it. So this morning involved a quick trip to Home Depot to get some bolt cutters to cut off the lock, before I could get into my suitcase.

Today, I stayed at home and did not go into work. I got flowers from Dept. Don’t the people who put the arrangements together ever look at the message? The arrangement was Easter themed with rabbits, chicks and eggs and was so totally inappropriate.

Time to take a nap.

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