2001-05-22 - 11:54 p.m.

The Burial

Folks I'd like to apologize. I have gotten tied up with the mundane job of wrapping up my father's estate, and so days have gone by without me updating, or getting back to the nice people who have left me notes. Again I apologize.

So, today I buried my father.

It's writing about what happened today that has stopped me cold. What do I say?

We decided not to have a funeral for my father, or rather *I* decided we weren't going to have a funeral. I have a feeling that Harry would have gone along with whatever I was determined to do. However, I think that's what he really wanted to do anyway, he was just looking for someone to be firm about it and take responsibility.

We didn't have a funeral when Mom died, just a simple burial. She'd been pretty much of a hermit for the last 15 years of her life - she had no friends left in town. If we had given a funeral nobody might have shown up. In fact, it is very likely DAD wouldn't have shown up. We probably would have had to drag him to it.

Dad was very much in favor of getting everything over quickly and quietly. He didn't even show up for the burial of the woman he'd been married to for 46 years. So, I figured he merited the same treatment.

Well, THIS burial he showed up for.

We decided to go the simple route again because I really did not feel like facing all the people Dad knew and having them tell me what a great guy he was. He was a fuck up. He fucked up his life and he fucked up his family. If someone had the guts to say to him 15 years ago - "What the HELL are you doing?" - things might have been a lot different. Or maybe not. But nobody did anything because it was easier in the short term to ignore all the odd things he seemed to be doing. I didn't really feel like having a little death party for all the people Dad knew, because for the most part I never knew them, and for the most part they aided and abetted in his irresponsibility.

And, to be 100% honest, it's cheaper this way. Dad only has a few thousand dollars to his name and I'm not sure I can pay the hospital bills and other expenses with what's left.

Anyway, the weather was quite cooperative with the spirit of the day. It was miserable and rainy. I brought 2 umbrellas: one for Harry and one for Lily and I.

We showed up at the grave at the assigned time and everything was all set. There was a neat, square hole dug in the earth. A square little toupee of grass was carefully placed to one side and all the dirt from the hole had been piled on a board so it wouldn't get the grass around all messy. After we were gone and the caretaker filled in the hole and replaced the grass, it probably wouldn't look like the ground had been disturbed at all.

Off on one side, also on a board, was the black urn with Dad's cremains in it. That's a new word I learned this week: "cremains." It's what's left of a body after cremation, as opposed to calling it "ashes" or "remains." The spellchecker I'm using hasn't heard of it.

Harry took the board off the hole and placed the urn in the hole, and then put the board back on the hole again. Lily stood off to one side while Harry and I shared an umbrella and thought of something appropriate to say.

The best Harry could come up with was: "Well, we could have done a lot worse." He meant it sincerely, but I think that falls under "damning with faint praise."

His point was that Dad had always paid the bills and sent us to college, etc. Yes, he did those things, but that doesn't let him off the hook for the other stuff.

There was a lot I would like to have said, and none of it very nice. However, it would have just been venting for my own sake and I didn't see the need to upset Harry. So the two of us just stood there in the rain, talking about Dad. In spite of the occasion, the talk wasn't entirely serious because when Harry and I feel awkward, we make little jokes.

We then spent a few minutes strolling through the cemetery, looking at the headstones. We also had to go over to the caretaker's shack to tell him we were done.

After that Harry left to head back downstate. He has a fairly high-pressure job and his boss was getting antsy with him being away so long. Lily and I went to get some lunch. And that was it.

When you're dead and buried, it's the end. While you're alive there is the hope, however faint, that you will be able to turn it around and redeem yourself. Death is nature's way of saying: Time's up! Turn in your papers!

So that's the finish of my father's story. All of the embarrassments and hassles and whatever else I had to put up with are at an end. No, that's not true. There is still a lot inside I have to work through. I feel that I'll never get through it. It will never be over for me.

What can I take away from all this? I know that people's lives aren't meant to serve as examples to others. Maybe the point of living is to learn to accept what happens with whatever grace you can muster. Maybe life has nothing else to teach but that.

However in this case I would say the lesson is: figure out what's important in your life and don’t fucking forget it!