I cannot seem to use the shift key consistently anymore, so please excuse the ones I miss. My fingers are bloody tired these days, and they've learned to conserve for the stuff that actually matters.
I was thinking of funerals today, as I prepare to attend another one tomorrow. I knew this funeral was coming, at least.
I think of my Dad, and not because of his funeral, which was a wonderful party at his favourite golf club, with all his friends there, as heartbroken as we were, putting on brave faces, and laughing with Dad's many stories. Dad wasn't called "The Legend" for nothing.
His dear friend, who was his doctor, gave the eulogy, which was actually, in Dr. Rick's words,
"The Rebuttal".
The gist was (and I need to get a copy of it!! Remind me)
"Thank You For Smoking."
Yup, dad never did quit. He had the "longest lungs" a radiologist had ever seen.
I realized that Dad, when he was about my age now, (YIKES) started going to a lot of funerals. That happens when you have a thousand friends. Some of his closest friends passed far too young, and they were very difficult for him. As the years past, we'd gottten used to Dad's often twice a year losses, and they always made us sad for dad too, of course. Buddies that were 20-30 years younger, so sad.
His dear family friends, his friends from the days when he was with my Mom, that true inner circle, were funeral fodder, too.
My dad looked a bit like Frank Sinatra. actually, I think if Dad on the left, and Larry on the right, had been glued together somehow, they'd have made a Frankie. I miss these guys, a lot.
Dad's friends were his life, his still-living/all ages golfing buddies I finally lost count of, at The Rebuttal.
Then he lost Joanie, the love of his life (too bad that wasn't MY mom, eh, mom...). We almost lost dad a year and a half after Joanie died, he'd taken it very hard, and had been drinking a lot, smoking and being naughty, and not eating. We all know what happens if you do that... I've blogged a little about his hospital adventures through the years I've been babbling, how he amazed every single medical person we would meet. Dad survived several (what felt like thousand) health scares after his first visit to hospital, when he went through the DT's, which I'd never seen before. I had to diagnose it for the doctors.
ANYWAY. 8 years and 8 months later, August 15, 2014 Dad went out kicking and rebutting, and he died alone in hospital about 8am, having said "Thank you" to the nurse who came and cleaned him up. When my sister called me I Said "are you sure?" Yes, the doctors were finally right. They'd been predicting his demise for two weeks, as Dad managed to break his hip the first night in hospital, survive that operation, and then a SECOND operation for his belly, the second week he was in.
He wasn't expected to survive either. Of course. The Legend.
He'd fallen and broken his pubic bone on May 28. Got himself out of hospital the next day by telling the geriatric nurse he had a full-time housekeeper. Which he didn't. We scrambled to look after him for a week, then hired Personal Service Workers. He kept insisting he didn't need any help... He was impossible.
Yeah. I didn't sleep much after that. He went back into hospital July 28th. I'll fill in this story someday, too tired now! Still semi-sleep deprived.
The day before, August 14, 2014, I had my Stanley-cat euthanized. At dad's house, where they'd had a simply marvelous few years. Stanley hadn't been well, at all. Got super skinny again, hyper-thyroid like me,which we were able to fix with some new meds for awhile, but he took to hiding in the basement most of the time. Dad was worried about him, too. That day, when I went back to the hospital, I told dad Stanley had found a new home, and silly old cat was feeling much better, my white lie to get Dad to smile, because dad already knew he wasn't going home.
Then my dear DARD (DogAfterRustyDog) Flip got bloat, and I euthed her on Labour Day. She was in a lot of pain, really hadn't been well, either. Flip already had a few major health issues against her.
I just knew when she bloated that was it. She went quietly and peacefully, as did Stanley.
Dad?
Well...
That's for next time, because it was enough to type this, and feel something again.
Horses?
In my mind, in my heart, but not in my life.
Still not ready, and I may never be again.
We'll see, right???
