My Father's Passing Away 5/3/01 (Part 3)

Round three of coredumping. My head is still extremely full, and I still have random little bits of memory rolling around in my head that I need to get down in something resembling a cohesive fashion.

Dar and Paul and I somehow managed to roll out of bed around five AM Eastern time this morning (i.e., around 2 AM our time). We weren't very coherent. I mumbled a protest about having been dreaming a very good game of Nethack (I remember now that it was one of those Nethack dreams I sometimes have that are full 3D, surround-sound, sensory experiences... I seem to recollect going through a portal into somewhere very gusty that in my dream I thought was Sokoban, but now I think I must have been crossing it with the Plane of Air). Paul consoled me with the thought that I had in fact actually won the game, and Dar asked me if I wanted my possessions identified. I mumbled something about having an "uncursed +0 backpack".

We passed exactly four cars on the road. Dar had thought there wouldn't be any, but we were apparently mistaken. We also went past a stretch of road that smelled extremely potently of skunk. Another sign that we were, in fact, in the South.

We dropped off our rental car at the (unoccupied) desk, and noted that someone else had left a set of keys just lying there on the counter. I hope that car got actually properly checked in.

Airport security was surprisingly thorough with Paul. We in fact had to go through security twice, since we got through the first time and went to the gate, only to discover a sign that told us we had to go back out and check in at the ticket counter. So Paul had to have the wand waved over him twice, and it chirped a lot about his belt buckle and his steel-toed boots, so they made him undo his belt buckle and frisked him. "Wacky with the wand," Dar described it.

The flight back up to Detroit was blessedly short — 47 minutes, on a pretty tiny jet. Paul expressed much approval over that shortness, as well as having an empty seat next to him. I dozed through most of the flight, though not quite enough to have it be "doze off, what, we're here already?!"

We got more cinnamon rolls in Detroit and dozed near the gate under a very loud TV tuned to CNN. I remember that they did stories on the "first space tourist" and Dar made derisive noises about NASA being so cranky about the guy just wanting to see what space was like. As far as we're concerned, if we had twenty million extra dollars, going to see what space was like would be a cool way to spend it.

The flight back was amazingly empty — a DC-10, but with a good number of empty rows which wound up being occupied by people stretching out to take naps. We did all get to sit together, and Dar and I scooted over one seat in our row so Paul could come across the aisle and sit with us.

I tried to doze for more or less the whole flight, though I didn't quite pull it off. I declined drinks and breakfast, not really wanting anything but to try to sleep and be blank for a while.

We got back to Seattle a full twenty minutes earlier than we'd been scheduled, but discovered that Mimi had been quite on the ball and had in fact called as soon as she'd awakened, only to discover that the flight would be early. So she pretty much rolled out of bed, into her clothes, and into her van to come and get us. And was greatly tickled by the duck story, though I foiled Paul in his attempt to just get her to quack at me when I came out of the ladies' room to find them waiting with strange expressions, so I demanded, "Did you tell her the duck story?"

I came home to find a bouquet of flowers waiting from Jessica — who, I should say here, not only instant-messaged me a lot on Thursday before we'd left, but who also promised to come over and entertain the cat once I told her that Mimi had already promised to look after the pets for us.

I also found several mails waiting from people on the OKP, and Dar forwarded me mails from folks on exrvl-l.

Kathryn instant-messaged me pretty much as soon as I turned on my computer and let me ramble at her a lot about what had happened. She laughed out loud at the duck story, and expressed amazement at the various bits of evidence of high artistic talent in my family (read: my brother the drummer, my Uncle the professional artist).

I found more messages I hadn't seen yet on the OKP, and posted a general thank-you to the kind people up there who had posted as well as emailed me privately. Then I finally decided to go ahead and take this journal entry and post it up on my webpage.

Some other random memories I want to record here...

• Marc and Didi had a new swingset/playset in the backyard for the children. Apparently the dogs Napoleon and Alpine had pretty much destroyed the old one, both being very large and very enthusiastic dogs; they'd pretty much pulled the old one up out of the ground and chewed it to death. I asked Marc if he'd been getting those dogs enough iron in their diets. Marc took Meighan into his lap and told her that every time she played on the new playset, she could remember that her Grandpa had helped build it.
  
  
• Dad's dog Buttons is apparently going to be adopted by my aforementioned Uncle Randy. Buttons wandered around Marc's house a lot when we were there, wagging his little stump of a freshly-groomed tail and looking amiable but confused at everyone and soaking up attention. I somewhat wondered if he was looking for Dad and not understanding why he wasn't there.
  
  
• Becky and I talked at the church about family lore and how Uncle John had been tracing the lineage of that side of the family for many years now; he's apparently gotten as far back as into the 1700's. Becky and I both marvelled over the sense of connection you can get from knowing who your ancestors were and what they did.
  
  
• We all talked some about this same topic at Marc's house, too. Uncle Larry asked me if I traced our roots in Scotland, once he learned we'd gone there. I said no, since I didn't know enough about our Scottish roots to know what clans we might have come from, though he did say that there were "several Highland clans". The problem is that I'm not sure that "Highland" is an actual surname, or whether some Scottish guy with an unpronounceable name came over some time ago and they looked at him on Ellis Island and said "Okay, your name is Highland now."
  
  
• Miriam showed up at Marc's and was pleased to see me wearing Dad's necklace.
  
  
• Heather told me about Uncle Larry's family's house in Chattanooga and asked me if I remembered it — which I didn't, since I didn't think Marc and I had ever set foot in the place in the six months or so we were down there. But she told me that they had a picture of an ancestor from something on the order of 22 generations back, whose eyes followed you down the hall.
  
  
• Meighan discovered that she could make grill cheese sandwiches in the microwave — and was so very proud of this accomplishment that she asked every single person in the house whether they wanted a sandwich. I told her quite firmly that yes, I wanted a sandwich, and she glowed as she brought it to me.
  
  
• Paul was informed by Betsy that he is now officially "Uncle Paul", which rather touched him. And I told him that he was apparently Charlie's new best friend, as Charlie gave him a great deal of scrutiny and was also extremely entertained at the attention Paul gave him as he sat under the kitchen table playing with Ms. Potato Head (sticking random plastic body parts into random holes).
  
  
• Between them, my Uncle Larry and my Uncle Marion now have 23 GRANDCHILDREN. I have entire branches on the family tree of which I had never been aware.
  
  
• Dar brought her minidisc recorder along on the trip, just because she could, and because she was still in Love Affair with New Toy mode. She turned to me during the pre-service family gathering at the church and asked me if I wanted to record the service, and I went blank for a few minutes and then said YES, because I thought that it would be much better to have it and not want it later than to want it and not have it. And it was totally worth it when I saw the look on my Uncle Larry's face that night when he asked for a copy of it once we burned it to CD.
  

And in Closing

I'm going to make a web page for my Dad, and I think I'm going to make one for my Mom as well. I can't go so far as to share Betsy's proclamation that I'm a "computer genius" — but I'm good with HTML. And I'm going to make that mailing list, or perhaps that Yahoo! club, where my family can talk with one another online. If there is anything I have learned from the last 72 hours it is that my family is so much bigger than I'd really ever conceived. We're flung far and wide and for the most part, we don't keep in touch with one another... and it shouldn't take tragedy to make us resume contact.

It's what I can do, in memory of my father.

Those of you who have read this far, thank you for hanging in there. I'm going to close this by asking you to go call your parents, or your siblings, or your aunts or uncles or cousins or whatever other loved ones you may have. If they're close by, make the time to go see them today. If they're distant, call them, or email them, or write them a little note and put it in the mail. Tell them you love them. Because you never know when you suddenly might not have them anymore.

I miss you, Daddy. Your onliest daughter is always going to miss you.