My Father's Passing Away 5/3/01 (Part 2)
May. 5th, 2001 10:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathepiperRound two of coredumping.
I left out two things from yesterday that I wanted to record.
When Dar and Paul and I got to Marc's house I remember that Marc was on the phone calling around to try to get Dad's credit cards cancelled. They seemed to want a lot of information to arrange to shut down his card, and Marc was told that the account wouldn't be able to be used any more — which he had to remind them was sort of the point.
Betsy also told us that Donnie had joined a new band called Outspoken — and the band has a record deal. She said that Donnie'd gotten the news about the deal only a couple of hours after he'd gotten the news about Dad, and I could barely wrap my mind around how that must have felt. I could only imagine myself sitting there as if I'd been belted with a brick, mumbling, "That's nice, check back with me in a week or so?"
I realized writing this second part tonight that Amanda had asked me yesterday if I had — of all things — my flashlight. Just this blue flashlight that I carried around in my backpack... but for some strange reason the kid finds it one of the most fascinating things in the world. I have, apparently, also left it at Marc's house. But I'm kind of okay with that.
We looked at the pictures out of Dad's wallet, too. I noted copies of my prom picture — I told Dar and Paul that I still had the dress, and Paul boggled at the sight of me wearing actual makeup — and my high school senior picture, on the back of which I'd written to Dad that this picture was from his "onliest" daughter who loved him.
On to talking about today.
The family gathered around noon at First Free Will Baptist Church, not far at all from Marc's house. None of the family were particularly churchgoing — though permission had been secured from the church for us to have a little service there. So we set aside a few hours just for the family and assorted friends to visit in the church, first of all.
I got a little shaky coming into the sanctuary and seeing the picture of Dad they'd set up, and the flowers that were surrounding it. I sat down on a pew and started crying for a little bit.
A surprisingly large number of Dad's coworkers from various places sent flowers or came by in person. There was a bouquet from Walmart #2628, and three young women who had worked with Dad and who talked about him always having a joke and a smile. I was deeply choked up to hear that the Radisson Hotel where Dad had a second job driving a shuttle had decided to fly their flag at half-mast today, after they'd learned that Dad was a Marine.
I saw my Uncle Marion, Dad's oldest brother, again for the first time in I'm not at all sure how long. And some of the first words out of his mouth were another confirmation of the duck noises story.
Dad's cousin Danny and his wife Linda were there. I thought Danny was Uncle Marion at first, since he rather looked like him from a distance. I couldn't remember who Linda was at first, either, but once they introduced themselves I could remember them both. Their daughter Cathy was easier — even though she was a great deal taller than I remembered. Her red hair clued me in.
Aunt Carolyn and Aunt Eloise were both there — Dad's aunts from his mom's side of the family — and Carolyn's daughter Sharon.
Marc introduced me to several of his coworkers who showed up.
Becky showed up, and we talked a good deal... about her finals, what classes she was taking this term, how far away her school was. About Russell Crowe (not surprisingly), and how she prefers him scruffy, a sentiment I assured her I shared; about Yahoo! clubs, and how if she ever wanted to post messages on a Russell Crowe club she should go to the one I'm on so I could tell people she was my sister; about Gladiator, and how Sarah had been teasing her that she and Daniel had a DVD copy of the movie. About her once playing the saxophone.
A good number of folks from her side of the family were there as well: Aunt Eileen, Aunt Cathy, Grandma Evelyn. Cathy's son Chris, who bent my brain some when he reminded me that he was only a couple of years younger than I am, and her daughter Holly.
Teresa showed up too, and Grandma Hyson. Teresa and I talked about her once playing the clarinet... and about my name, and she told me that I could change my name to Petunia and I'd always be Angie to my family. I'm okay with that, too. I assured her I was Angela at work, anyway.
I saw several people I didn't recognize from Betsy's side of the family, of assorted ages, and a couple friends of Donnie's I didn't know either.
Marc and Donnie set up music playing in the sanctuary — because it occurred and quite rightly to Marc that Dad had always had music of some kind or another playing in his home. So we had the Platters playing through a good deal of the gathering time, and other oldies as well.
Dar asked me if I wanted her to record the service on her minidisc player, since she had for absolutely no good reason brought it with her from Seattle. So I told her yes, since I figured it would be better to have it and not want it later, than to want it later and not have it.
I talked a great deal with Uncle Larry's daughter Heather, who told me a lot about her family and her three children and their adventures with pets. We talked about schools in Louisville as well and how different high schools in Louisville have been organized with various sorts of specialities, depending on what a student wants to choose for a career path, almost like a major in college. I told her I remembered the beginnings of the magnet school programs being set up when I was still in Louisville, and she recognized the names of the schools I'd attended, Noe Middle School and DuPont Manual High.
I had another brief little attack of tears and Uncle Marion came up and hugged me and made me giggle by quacking.
I had to walk around a little bit at a couple of points, to try to decompress. Walked some with Becky as we talked, and had a can of something called Dr. Thunder, which is apparently a local grocery chain knockoff of Dr. Pepper. I didn't care for it much, as it was more syrupy than Dr. Pepper, but at least it seemed to provide some caffeine, which is what I needed at the time.
Dar and Paul and I walked around in the parking lot in back of the church and pondered what the heck a Free Will Baptist was. We saw a blue jay out by the garden by the parking lot, and I saw a little carved owl among the plants, which Paul said was there to scare off rodents.
I think it was Didi's sister Donna and her ex-husband whose name I have just totally forgotten who made the jokes about Baptist schisms and how if two Baptists were the only survivors of a shipwreck, they would promptly found two different sects. And, Dar added, then schism again.
In the dining room/kitchen area where the food had been placed, there were colored lines of tape on the floor, and we spent a little bit of time trying to figure out what they were for. Donna's ex-husband was also the one who made jokes about animal or human sacrifices probably not being an option there — and her and her husband's kid Sascha seemed to recognize the layout, and said something about a game called "chicken", which her dad promptly offered up as where the aforementioned animal sacrifices must have come in, therefore mortifying Sascha who insisted that there were no actual chickens involved.
Marc's kids ran around the sanctuary a lot. Meighan and Amanda kept trying to hide under the pews, and Amanda played peekaboo at me from several pews back, greatly tickled every time I observed that I could see fingers. Charlie was incredibly fascinated with the doors to either side of the front of the sanctuary and ran to each of them and smacked them with his little hand. At some point I didn't see the little guy must have tripped and fallen, because he wound up with quite the bump on his head, but this seems to happen to Charlie a lot as he is constantly running into something. Every time I see the kid, he is in motion. Often backwards. Didi eventually ran the kids home as they were tiring out partway through the gathering time, though.
Sharon gathered a sizeable array of pictures of Dad to go with the main one they had up front with the flowers. And I cried again when I saw the picture of me with my flute Jade, next to Dad at a recent Christmas — 1998. Each of the pictures had a label, Father, Grandfather, Companion, Friend, Comic, and others... all of them very much a celebration of him.
The main flowers were yellow roses — since none of us could remember what Dad's favorite color was. I wanted to say blue, but I couldn't guarantee it.
Several other bouquets showed up as well, white lilies and other assorted ones... a lovely array all up and down the front of the sanctuary.
I started spreading around thoughts about a family email list or a message board where we could post things to one another. I started gathering addresses — Heather's, as well as Uncle Larry's and Uncle Marion's. I will probably make a Yahoo! club or something where we can post to one another; I'm not sure yet.
At 4pm the official service started, overseen by the pastor, who I managed to identify only as Brother Rick. He did a decent job of saying uplifting things, considering that he didn't know any of us.
Most of the talking was done by the family.
Marc... who made me cry when he spoke of us, we siblings, who'd always remember our dad.
Sharon... who said that Dad was her cousin and her best friend and her fix-it man who was always there to come over and fix any little problem in her house.
Uncle Marion and Uncle Larry both, sharing memories of their brother.
Aunt Teresa, who stood up and announced that her first memory of Dad was when he came back from the service to look up Mom, and how impressed she was to see her big sister's boyfriend drive up in a red convertible. She spoke of the hard times our family has gone through... but how, so many years later, she thinks very kindly of Dad.
Donnie's wife Betsy stood up and told us all in tears that she could always see how, even though Dad wasn't always necessarily the best provider in the world, it was obvious to her that he was so proud of his children and what they'd accomplished. Donnie, the musician. Me, the "computer genius". Marc, the architect.
I thought about talking, but it didn't feel like my way. I did tell people later though that I thought I'd make a web page for my Daddy. So I kept my thoughts inside for recording here.
The overall theme of pretty much everything that was said was that Dad celebrated life... and that he was a friend to everyone: "nobody didn't like Don." (My family's not necessarily the best bunch of grammarians in the world. But hey. The sentiment was right.) And how if God had a hole in the wall, he now had the man to fix it.
Uncle Larry asked us all to sing the first and last verses of "Amazing Grace".
Dar and Paul and I aren't Christian. But Paul and I still come from the background... and even now I still carry a healthy respect for the divine, no matter what form it is given and no matter how one worships it. So I sang, too, though it took me a little bit to actually find my voice. Paul sang too, and so did Dar, though Dar told us later that she didn't know the words and had to watch the pastor for cues.
Lots of hugging, on the way out. Of everyone who was going ahead and departing — Becky, Aunt Eileen and Aunt Cathy, Grandma Evelyn. Aunt Carolyn, Aunt Eloise, Danny and Linda and Cathy.
The rest of us went back to Marc's house.
There was, again, a great deal of food. I had banana pudding with Vanilla Wafers in it, which was pretty tasty.
It turned out to be Amanda, not Meighan, who first asked me if I'd brought my computer. I had in fact left the laptop at the hotel room, but offered to show Amanda my little handheld computer instead and played a bit of Solitaire on it for her. Meighan wanted to know if I could play Nethack on it — which I can, but the copy of the game I have is unplayably slow, and I tried to explain this to her. So she promptly begged me to come upstairs with her to her daddy's computer, since I'd installed Nethack on it for Marc last Christmas, and teach her and Sascha how to play.
Amanda was greatly put out that we wouldn't play the games she wanted to see, a collection of kid's games Marc has on CD, until I assured her that we would take turns and as soon as Meighan and Sascha were done with Nethack we'd play what she wanted to play, too. It helped that she was brought into the all-important decision making process the girls wanted to make at the beginning of Nethack, i.e., what to name their character. Then I walked them through how to make a character go in Nethack, what all the little numbers on the status line meant, and how to move around and kill monsters and pick up objects. Much complaints were issued by the young ones about the failure of their character's dog to keep up with them, but the dog eventually fell into a pit anyway and died, so the matter soon became moot. Their character died shortly thereafter anyway, due to a magic trap, and their sum total of points was something like 191. Not bad for a pair of nineish-year-olds playing Nethack for the first time. ;)
Then we put in the CD of the games Amanda wanted to see. But by then I was about fried since the temperature in Marc's computer room was much greater than the tempature downstairs, so I pledged the older girls to watch over the younger one as long as they were playing with the computer, and rejoined the grownups downstairs.
Marc brought over Dad's record collection and I spent a good deal of time going through all of them. I wanted to see Dad's Elvis records, especially... and although I realized that I had copies of just about all of his Elvis records already and wouldn't need to take them back with me, it was still good to handle them.
Grandma Hyson came over and looked over my shoulder as I went through them all. She expressed her wonder at me that Elvis was so much older than I, yet I'd always been such a fan; I told her that'd always gotten me some teasing in school. Kids would say to me, "he's DEAD!" And I'd try to remember to tell them — when I didn't cry — that Beethoven was too, and people still listened to his music. We chatted about music in general... and she told me that a lot of the music that she liked just was never played on the radio anymore. Speaking as someone who never listens to the radio herself, I could sympathize and told her so. She told me too how she'd every so often remember a bit or a piece of a song and wished she'd remember to write down the bits that came to mind so that she could ask someone to look them up — and I told her that she could write me any time she wanted and I would look up any song she wanted on the Internet, since there are webpages whose sole purpose is nothing but the lyrics of songs.
Photo albums appeared, too, and much was made of them. I was stunned to discover pictures of me as far back as 1970 — when I was a mere one year old. There were pictures of Grandpa Burg and Grandma Ruth, Dad's parents. And Uncle Morris — one of Grandma Ruth's brothers. I didn't remember him, but Uncle Larry did. Uncle Morris's children were in one of the old pictures as well.
There were pictures of my mother. And at least one picture of me where I looked so much like Mom that Uncle Larry thought it was Mom until I assured him it was me, since I recognized the shirt and shorts I was wearing in the picture. I'm fairly sure I even still have those shorts, though I'm also fairly sure they don't fit me anymore.
At some point in the picture-perusal, Marc's dog Napoleon trotted into the living room; someone must have let him in. Grandma boggled at the size of him, and I made the obligatory jokes about whether he was a dog or a horse or a small bear. She was very surprised to learn that Napoleon was in fact a German shepherd, since he is solid black.
There were a great number of pictures of Dad and Miriam on various trips... pictures of Donnie's old girlfriend Paige, as well as Marc's first wife (and Meighan's mother) Judy. And pictures of Donnie with former bands, like Almost Noah. Pictures of semi-recent Christmases that included Dar — some in which Dar's hair was almost short. And a number of pictures where I could only think about how very Eighties my hair looked, as well as pictures from what I'm now considering my mutant phase in school when my hair always looked unkempt and my glasses were thick and Teresa said that you could always tell a picture of me because I had my nose in a book. There was even one of me with my nose in a big songbook of Elvis songs, of which Teresa observed that had to be the best of both my worlds. I still remember that songbook, too. It was huge and orange and had a full hundred Elvis songs in it.
A larger copy of my high school picture was in the album with all of the oldest pictures, and Teresa didn't quite believe that it was me in high school — but I didn't have glasses then, so I knew it had to be after my junior year when I got the contact lenses.
Meighan got in on the picture-perusal when I started showing her pictures of her daddy when he was tiny. She made the sort of stunned and giggling noises you'd expect of a nine-year-old seeing pictures of her daddy in elementary school and even earlier.
Didi cornered me at one point and told me that things had been pretty much arranged for Marc to be executor of what little estate Dad has. Which, as far as I am concerned, is pretty much fine. I had thought some earlier in the day about whether I should stay a bit later than Dar and Paul — but after I looked at Dad's albums, all of him that I really thought I wanted was the pictures. There are things that Grandpa Burg and Grandma Ruth made that he had kept... shelves of knick-knacks and pictures and things. But I rather felt that they should stay in Kentucky. And I couldn't imagine that his furniture would be useful to me — and it'd have to be shipped across the country anyway. Or his clothes. I told Didi to donate his clothes to charity... to make sure that people who needed them got them. I told her too that I was pretty much not needing to think about things like this quite yet, and she made noises about making sure the things the family thought would be kept would be packed away so that at some time in the future, when we were ready, we'd be able to go through it all.
I have Dad's jade necklace — Miriam told me she was glad I had it — and I think that it, along with copies of whatever pictures my brothers can send me and a head full of memories of music, will do me.
On the way back from the hotel I told Dar and Paul that I was probably going to be talking Kentucky for a while — and Paul said that I had good kin and that he was probably going to be in Virginia mode for a while. I thanked both of them again for being there and told them I'd decided to come on home with them because I had pretty much gotten to the point that I needed to be home, though I hadn't really realized it until I set foot out of the door. But yeah, as I write this, a couple hours later, I'm ready to be home again.
I left out two things from yesterday that I wanted to record.
When Dar and Paul and I got to Marc's house I remember that Marc was on the phone calling around to try to get Dad's credit cards cancelled. They seemed to want a lot of information to arrange to shut down his card, and Marc was told that the account wouldn't be able to be used any more — which he had to remind them was sort of the point.
Betsy also told us that Donnie had joined a new band called Outspoken — and the band has a record deal. She said that Donnie'd gotten the news about the deal only a couple of hours after he'd gotten the news about Dad, and I could barely wrap my mind around how that must have felt. I could only imagine myself sitting there as if I'd been belted with a brick, mumbling, "That's nice, check back with me in a week or so?"
I realized writing this second part tonight that Amanda had asked me yesterday if I had — of all things — my flashlight. Just this blue flashlight that I carried around in my backpack... but for some strange reason the kid finds it one of the most fascinating things in the world. I have, apparently, also left it at Marc's house. But I'm kind of okay with that.
We looked at the pictures out of Dad's wallet, too. I noted copies of my prom picture — I told Dar and Paul that I still had the dress, and Paul boggled at the sight of me wearing actual makeup — and my high school senior picture, on the back of which I'd written to Dad that this picture was from his "onliest" daughter who loved him.
On to talking about today.
The family gathered around noon at First Free Will Baptist Church, not far at all from Marc's house. None of the family were particularly churchgoing — though permission had been secured from the church for us to have a little service there. So we set aside a few hours just for the family and assorted friends to visit in the church, first of all.
I got a little shaky coming into the sanctuary and seeing the picture of Dad they'd set up, and the flowers that were surrounding it. I sat down on a pew and started crying for a little bit.
A surprisingly large number of Dad's coworkers from various places sent flowers or came by in person. There was a bouquet from Walmart #2628, and three young women who had worked with Dad and who talked about him always having a joke and a smile. I was deeply choked up to hear that the Radisson Hotel where Dad had a second job driving a shuttle had decided to fly their flag at half-mast today, after they'd learned that Dad was a Marine.
I saw my Uncle Marion, Dad's oldest brother, again for the first time in I'm not at all sure how long. And some of the first words out of his mouth were another confirmation of the duck noises story.
Dad's cousin Danny and his wife Linda were there. I thought Danny was Uncle Marion at first, since he rather looked like him from a distance. I couldn't remember who Linda was at first, either, but once they introduced themselves I could remember them both. Their daughter Cathy was easier — even though she was a great deal taller than I remembered. Her red hair clued me in.
Aunt Carolyn and Aunt Eloise were both there — Dad's aunts from his mom's side of the family — and Carolyn's daughter Sharon.
Marc introduced me to several of his coworkers who showed up.
Becky showed up, and we talked a good deal... about her finals, what classes she was taking this term, how far away her school was. About Russell Crowe (not surprisingly), and how she prefers him scruffy, a sentiment I assured her I shared; about Yahoo! clubs, and how if she ever wanted to post messages on a Russell Crowe club she should go to the one I'm on so I could tell people she was my sister; about Gladiator, and how Sarah had been teasing her that she and Daniel had a DVD copy of the movie. About her once playing the saxophone.
A good number of folks from her side of the family were there as well: Aunt Eileen, Aunt Cathy, Grandma Evelyn. Cathy's son Chris, who bent my brain some when he reminded me that he was only a couple of years younger than I am, and her daughter Holly.
Teresa showed up too, and Grandma Hyson. Teresa and I talked about her once playing the clarinet... and about my name, and she told me that I could change my name to Petunia and I'd always be Angie to my family. I'm okay with that, too. I assured her I was Angela at work, anyway.
I saw several people I didn't recognize from Betsy's side of the family, of assorted ages, and a couple friends of Donnie's I didn't know either.
Marc and Donnie set up music playing in the sanctuary — because it occurred and quite rightly to Marc that Dad had always had music of some kind or another playing in his home. So we had the Platters playing through a good deal of the gathering time, and other oldies as well.
Dar asked me if I wanted her to record the service on her minidisc player, since she had for absolutely no good reason brought it with her from Seattle. So I told her yes, since I figured it would be better to have it and not want it later, than to want it later and not have it.
I talked a great deal with Uncle Larry's daughter Heather, who told me a lot about her family and her three children and their adventures with pets. We talked about schools in Louisville as well and how different high schools in Louisville have been organized with various sorts of specialities, depending on what a student wants to choose for a career path, almost like a major in college. I told her I remembered the beginnings of the magnet school programs being set up when I was still in Louisville, and she recognized the names of the schools I'd attended, Noe Middle School and DuPont Manual High.
I had another brief little attack of tears and Uncle Marion came up and hugged me and made me giggle by quacking.
I had to walk around a little bit at a couple of points, to try to decompress. Walked some with Becky as we talked, and had a can of something called Dr. Thunder, which is apparently a local grocery chain knockoff of Dr. Pepper. I didn't care for it much, as it was more syrupy than Dr. Pepper, but at least it seemed to provide some caffeine, which is what I needed at the time.
Dar and Paul and I walked around in the parking lot in back of the church and pondered what the heck a Free Will Baptist was. We saw a blue jay out by the garden by the parking lot, and I saw a little carved owl among the plants, which Paul said was there to scare off rodents.
I think it was Didi's sister Donna and her ex-husband whose name I have just totally forgotten who made the jokes about Baptist schisms and how if two Baptists were the only survivors of a shipwreck, they would promptly found two different sects. And, Dar added, then schism again.
In the dining room/kitchen area where the food had been placed, there were colored lines of tape on the floor, and we spent a little bit of time trying to figure out what they were for. Donna's ex-husband was also the one who made jokes about animal or human sacrifices probably not being an option there — and her and her husband's kid Sascha seemed to recognize the layout, and said something about a game called "chicken", which her dad promptly offered up as where the aforementioned animal sacrifices must have come in, therefore mortifying Sascha who insisted that there were no actual chickens involved.
Marc's kids ran around the sanctuary a lot. Meighan and Amanda kept trying to hide under the pews, and Amanda played peekaboo at me from several pews back, greatly tickled every time I observed that I could see fingers. Charlie was incredibly fascinated with the doors to either side of the front of the sanctuary and ran to each of them and smacked them with his little hand. At some point I didn't see the little guy must have tripped and fallen, because he wound up with quite the bump on his head, but this seems to happen to Charlie a lot as he is constantly running into something. Every time I see the kid, he is in motion. Often backwards. Didi eventually ran the kids home as they were tiring out partway through the gathering time, though.
Sharon gathered a sizeable array of pictures of Dad to go with the main one they had up front with the flowers. And I cried again when I saw the picture of me with my flute Jade, next to Dad at a recent Christmas — 1998. Each of the pictures had a label, Father, Grandfather, Companion, Friend, Comic, and others... all of them very much a celebration of him.
The main flowers were yellow roses — since none of us could remember what Dad's favorite color was. I wanted to say blue, but I couldn't guarantee it.
Several other bouquets showed up as well, white lilies and other assorted ones... a lovely array all up and down the front of the sanctuary.
I started spreading around thoughts about a family email list or a message board where we could post things to one another. I started gathering addresses — Heather's, as well as Uncle Larry's and Uncle Marion's. I will probably make a Yahoo! club or something where we can post to one another; I'm not sure yet.
At 4pm the official service started, overseen by the pastor, who I managed to identify only as Brother Rick. He did a decent job of saying uplifting things, considering that he didn't know any of us.
Most of the talking was done by the family.
Marc... who made me cry when he spoke of us, we siblings, who'd always remember our dad.
Sharon... who said that Dad was her cousin and her best friend and her fix-it man who was always there to come over and fix any little problem in her house.
Uncle Marion and Uncle Larry both, sharing memories of their brother.
Aunt Teresa, who stood up and announced that her first memory of Dad was when he came back from the service to look up Mom, and how impressed she was to see her big sister's boyfriend drive up in a red convertible. She spoke of the hard times our family has gone through... but how, so many years later, she thinks very kindly of Dad.
Donnie's wife Betsy stood up and told us all in tears that she could always see how, even though Dad wasn't always necessarily the best provider in the world, it was obvious to her that he was so proud of his children and what they'd accomplished. Donnie, the musician. Me, the "computer genius". Marc, the architect.
I thought about talking, but it didn't feel like my way. I did tell people later though that I thought I'd make a web page for my Daddy. So I kept my thoughts inside for recording here.
The overall theme of pretty much everything that was said was that Dad celebrated life... and that he was a friend to everyone: "nobody didn't like Don." (My family's not necessarily the best bunch of grammarians in the world. But hey. The sentiment was right.) And how if God had a hole in the wall, he now had the man to fix it.
Uncle Larry asked us all to sing the first and last verses of "Amazing Grace".
Dar and Paul and I aren't Christian. But Paul and I still come from the background... and even now I still carry a healthy respect for the divine, no matter what form it is given and no matter how one worships it. So I sang, too, though it took me a little bit to actually find my voice. Paul sang too, and so did Dar, though Dar told us later that she didn't know the words and had to watch the pastor for cues.
Lots of hugging, on the way out. Of everyone who was going ahead and departing — Becky, Aunt Eileen and Aunt Cathy, Grandma Evelyn. Aunt Carolyn, Aunt Eloise, Danny and Linda and Cathy.
The rest of us went back to Marc's house.
There was, again, a great deal of food. I had banana pudding with Vanilla Wafers in it, which was pretty tasty.
It turned out to be Amanda, not Meighan, who first asked me if I'd brought my computer. I had in fact left the laptop at the hotel room, but offered to show Amanda my little handheld computer instead and played a bit of Solitaire on it for her. Meighan wanted to know if I could play Nethack on it — which I can, but the copy of the game I have is unplayably slow, and I tried to explain this to her. So she promptly begged me to come upstairs with her to her daddy's computer, since I'd installed Nethack on it for Marc last Christmas, and teach her and Sascha how to play.
Amanda was greatly put out that we wouldn't play the games she wanted to see, a collection of kid's games Marc has on CD, until I assured her that we would take turns and as soon as Meighan and Sascha were done with Nethack we'd play what she wanted to play, too. It helped that she was brought into the all-important decision making process the girls wanted to make at the beginning of Nethack, i.e., what to name their character. Then I walked them through how to make a character go in Nethack, what all the little numbers on the status line meant, and how to move around and kill monsters and pick up objects. Much complaints were issued by the young ones about the failure of their character's dog to keep up with them, but the dog eventually fell into a pit anyway and died, so the matter soon became moot. Their character died shortly thereafter anyway, due to a magic trap, and their sum total of points was something like 191. Not bad for a pair of nineish-year-olds playing Nethack for the first time. ;)
Then we put in the CD of the games Amanda wanted to see. But by then I was about fried since the temperature in Marc's computer room was much greater than the tempature downstairs, so I pledged the older girls to watch over the younger one as long as they were playing with the computer, and rejoined the grownups downstairs.
Marc brought over Dad's record collection and I spent a good deal of time going through all of them. I wanted to see Dad's Elvis records, especially... and although I realized that I had copies of just about all of his Elvis records already and wouldn't need to take them back with me, it was still good to handle them.
Grandma Hyson came over and looked over my shoulder as I went through them all. She expressed her wonder at me that Elvis was so much older than I, yet I'd always been such a fan; I told her that'd always gotten me some teasing in school. Kids would say to me, "he's DEAD!" And I'd try to remember to tell them — when I didn't cry — that Beethoven was too, and people still listened to his music. We chatted about music in general... and she told me that a lot of the music that she liked just was never played on the radio anymore. Speaking as someone who never listens to the radio herself, I could sympathize and told her so. She told me too how she'd every so often remember a bit or a piece of a song and wished she'd remember to write down the bits that came to mind so that she could ask someone to look them up — and I told her that she could write me any time she wanted and I would look up any song she wanted on the Internet, since there are webpages whose sole purpose is nothing but the lyrics of songs.
Photo albums appeared, too, and much was made of them. I was stunned to discover pictures of me as far back as 1970 — when I was a mere one year old. There were pictures of Grandpa Burg and Grandma Ruth, Dad's parents. And Uncle Morris — one of Grandma Ruth's brothers. I didn't remember him, but Uncle Larry did. Uncle Morris's children were in one of the old pictures as well.
There were pictures of my mother. And at least one picture of me where I looked so much like Mom that Uncle Larry thought it was Mom until I assured him it was me, since I recognized the shirt and shorts I was wearing in the picture. I'm fairly sure I even still have those shorts, though I'm also fairly sure they don't fit me anymore.
At some point in the picture-perusal, Marc's dog Napoleon trotted into the living room; someone must have let him in. Grandma boggled at the size of him, and I made the obligatory jokes about whether he was a dog or a horse or a small bear. She was very surprised to learn that Napoleon was in fact a German shepherd, since he is solid black.
There were a great number of pictures of Dad and Miriam on various trips... pictures of Donnie's old girlfriend Paige, as well as Marc's first wife (and Meighan's mother) Judy. And pictures of Donnie with former bands, like Almost Noah. Pictures of semi-recent Christmases that included Dar — some in which Dar's hair was almost short. And a number of pictures where I could only think about how very Eighties my hair looked, as well as pictures from what I'm now considering my mutant phase in school when my hair always looked unkempt and my glasses were thick and Teresa said that you could always tell a picture of me because I had my nose in a book. There was even one of me with my nose in a big songbook of Elvis songs, of which Teresa observed that had to be the best of both my worlds. I still remember that songbook, too. It was huge and orange and had a full hundred Elvis songs in it.
A larger copy of my high school picture was in the album with all of the oldest pictures, and Teresa didn't quite believe that it was me in high school — but I didn't have glasses then, so I knew it had to be after my junior year when I got the contact lenses.
Meighan got in on the picture-perusal when I started showing her pictures of her daddy when he was tiny. She made the sort of stunned and giggling noises you'd expect of a nine-year-old seeing pictures of her daddy in elementary school and even earlier.
Didi cornered me at one point and told me that things had been pretty much arranged for Marc to be executor of what little estate Dad has. Which, as far as I am concerned, is pretty much fine. I had thought some earlier in the day about whether I should stay a bit later than Dar and Paul — but after I looked at Dad's albums, all of him that I really thought I wanted was the pictures. There are things that Grandpa Burg and Grandma Ruth made that he had kept... shelves of knick-knacks and pictures and things. But I rather felt that they should stay in Kentucky. And I couldn't imagine that his furniture would be useful to me — and it'd have to be shipped across the country anyway. Or his clothes. I told Didi to donate his clothes to charity... to make sure that people who needed them got them. I told her too that I was pretty much not needing to think about things like this quite yet, and she made noises about making sure the things the family thought would be kept would be packed away so that at some time in the future, when we were ready, we'd be able to go through it all.
I have Dad's jade necklace — Miriam told me she was glad I had it — and I think that it, along with copies of whatever pictures my brothers can send me and a head full of memories of music, will do me.
On the way back from the hotel I told Dar and Paul that I was probably going to be talking Kentucky for a while — and Paul said that I had good kin and that he was probably going to be in Virginia mode for a while. I thanked both of them again for being there and told them I'd decided to come on home with them because I had pretty much gotten to the point that I needed to be home, though I hadn't really realized it until I set foot out of the door. But yeah, as I write this, a couple hours later, I'm ready to be home again.