A Tomb with a View - part one

My first job was delivering flowers for a now defunct flower shop that was located adjacent to a Polly's Pies in Long Beach. I made $5.50 an hour, all the soda I could drink, and the employee discount on food and pies at Polly's. It was a pretty cool first job to have but there were two places I hated to deliver flowers to - gay bars (not that there's anything wrong with that) and funeral homes.

I always got a little freaked out when it came to delivering a casket piece because most funeral homes made the delivery guy place it on the casket. If I was lucky, it would be a closed casket and I could get out of there really quickly.

If I was unlucky, that casket was open and I'd have to see the body. It never happened to me but I was always afraid that I would be in there all by myself and the body would make some sort of death rattle or worse, sit up in the casket.

Funeral homes just freak me out.

Saturday morning arrived and Number 2 and I had a 10:00 a.m. appointment at the funeral home. My dad had wanted to be buried with his parents at Riverside Memorial but the tricky thing about that was my grandfather had to be dead first before my father could be buried there. Funeral and burial arrangements were about the only thing that my dad didn't take care of before he passed so Number 2 and I decided to have him buried just up the street from where he worked when we were kids.

It is the Disneyworld of funeral homes.

I knew the place was big. I had been there for other funerals. But I never really understood the amount of land that this business really had.

Number 2 pulls up to the "arrangements office" just after I do and we head into the lobby.

It is apparent that everything in the lobby is set up to be soothing. There's a babbling brook with a waterfall. Classical music is playing softly in the background. Three receptionists are sitting at a bank of phones like volunteers for a PBS pledge drive.

Number 2 gets excited about something in the lobby and wants me to check it out. "VW, look over there!!!"

It's the urn display.

"How cool would it be if Paul Bearer came out right now holding one of those urns?" says Number 2.

I smile at the notion of the WWF manager leading the Undertaker through this lobby with the over-the-top screech of the Phenom's name - "UNNNNNDERRRRRTAAAAAAAKERRRRRRR!!!"

Number 2 is right. It would be funny if Paul Bearer was here.

We sit for a while and I pick up an LA Times to read. An employee begins to head toward us but as I make eye contact with her, she apologizes without saying a word - she wasn't coming to pick us up.

After about 15 minutes, a large black man greets us. He explains that he is going to help us pick the plot and then once we have that another employee will help us with all of the other details. He escorts us to a nondescript office so we can begin the paperwork.

The walls in his office are adorned with fake grave markers of all different sizes on one side and memory books on the other. He turns to his PC and begins to fill in the blanks on some sort of template to help us with all of the funeral and burial arrangements. It looks like Death Madlibs.

He starts asking us what type of plot we would be interested in and I cut him off before he can get too far into his sales pitch.

"I don't mean to be crass," I said. "But my father was very clear to both of us that he didn't want us spending anymore on him than we absolutely had to."

"I understand that but don't you want have the appropriate memorial for your father?"

I could see Number 2 tense up. Getting mad about a pretty horrible sales technique wasn't going to help but both of us were instantly annoyed. We didn't want to be cheap here. We HAD to be cheap here. My father would have haunted us forever if we spent too much money here.

"Let's just take a look at what you have that is in the price range that we'd like to be in."

With that, he escorted us out of the office and to one of the white mini-vans parked out front.

We were off to find the final resting place for our father.

VW

The Day After - conclusion

On Thursdays and Fridays, my Mom stays with us to watch the Chicken. I'm glad that she's been able to be there for the Chicken because I certainly haven't been able to be much of a parent to her over the last 24 hours.

And it's really funny that even though my dad is gone, I'm still shuttling back and forth between my two parents just like I did every weekend after their final separation.

I come home to my Mom and the Chicken playing with puzzles. The puzzles kind of drive me nuts. The pieces end up everywhere. I usually step on one of them a night. But I don't say anything about them because my Mom and the Chicken have the same look on their faces when the Chicken gets a puzzle piece in the correct spot - it is pure joy.

My Mom is worried about both me and Number 2 but she stops short of expressing it. She has a pained look on her face but she restrains from asking too many questions and justs lets me tell her what I'm ready to tell her.

"Do you need anything to eat?" she asks.

I haven't had anything to eat but I've had about 17 cans of Mountain Dew in the last 24 hours. No wonder I can't sleep.

"Nah. I'm not hungry. I need to wash Dad's glasses. They were pretty bloody and I'd like clean them up."

"Oh," she replied, "I've already cleaned them. They are on the counter."

Wow. I can't believe she did that. That couldn't have been easy. But I guess it was going to be easier for her to do it than for me to do it. She probably knew that.

I retrieve the glasses and take a long look at them. Although they've been cleaned, I can still picture the blood on them. But I can also see the Chicken grabbing them off of my dad's face and chewing on the lenses. I put the glasses up in the Chicken's room. They'll stay there for now.

The Commander calls to check in. Everyone that she's been at Space Camp with has been very supportive. I can tell that she feels a little out of the loop. She's grieving too and doesn't have anyone to do that with. I don't want to tell her how much I'm missing her right now. I don't want to spoil her experience. But I need her back because I know that I can't get through this without her.

The rest of the day is pretty uneventful...until I finally go to sleep and start to dream.

I don't remember too many of my dreams but this one has stuck with me.

I'm back at my Dad's and he's there with me.

There are other men in the room but I can't see their faces. I can really only feel that they are present in the room. My Dad is smiling but he has tears running down his face. He's wearing a Hawaiian shirt, shorts that are too short for him, Vans, and a really bad Greek sailor's hat.

He doesn't say anything to me but he reaches out for me.

My Dad gives me a hug.

He pulls away from me but is still holding on to me shoulders. The front door to his house opens and he walks out with the other men that have been in the room.

The door closes and I'm left alone in my Dad's house.

And then I wake up.

I'm left with the question - did my Dad really make a guest appearance in my dream to say goodbye or was this just the human brain trying to make some sense out of an unimaginable loss?

I'll never know but it doesn't matter. If it was just my mind playing some tricks on me, it was a good one.

The only thing that matters is that it did feel real.

I felt like I got to have a proper goodbye.

VW

The Day After - part two

I pulled up in front of my dad's house and Number 2 was right behind me. The last thing that I wanted was to give anyone a chance to break in a steal anything. It's not like it is a bad neighborhood (although it does scare the Commander) but I wanted to eliminate the opportunity.

Moondoggie popped out of his unit as soon as he saw us walk up.

"Hey guys. I havne't had a chance to clean up yet. I'm going to go in there a little later today. Should I clean out the refrigerator too?"

I hadn't thought of that. There's a lot of stuff. I haven't thought about yet. I'm too consumed with the thought, GET EVERYTHING OUT OF THIS HOUSE.

I knew I wanted the guns out of there but bringing them back to my house was not an option. I knew there would be some cash in the house. Could be just a couple hundred bucks but it could be thousands. And there was something else that I knew needed to go today.

The porn stash.

The house looked different in daylight. The freshly painted swiss coffee walls looked just a little TOO white. It didn't really feel like anyone lived here. It was too cold.

Number 2 went into the bedroom where the guns were and I started to look at the paper work left behind on his dining room table. It was going to take me a full day to organize this and it wasn't going to be today.

"I've got six handguns in here!" yelled Number 2.

Shit. That seems like a lot of guns to me. I walked into the bedroom and flinched as I saw Number 2 checking the chamber on one of the handguns.

"Jesus, Number 2! Do you have to do this now? I don't want anyone getting shot today," I said.

"Listen, VW. Dad knew that you could take care of the money and he knew I could take care of the guns. Let's just stick to worrying about what each one of us is good at," said Number 2.

He was right.

I started checking all of the places that my Dad used to hide cash and I ended up finding about $400. "Put it in the Chicken's college fund," said Number 2. I thought to myself that we were standing in the Chicken's college fund.

I ran out of places to check for cash. It was time to look for the porn.

One of the casulties of my parents divorce was an incredible Playboy collection that my Mom threw away immediately after the separation. There wasn't going to be anything worth keeping in what we found on this day but it was worth getting rid of just in case my grandparents came over on the day of the memorial services.

We had one more thing that we needed to pick up - clothes that my dad would be buried in. I pulled out some of his dry cleaning that was still in the plastic and his very worn, very stinky two-tone blue Vans slip ons.

After an hour, I had been there long enough. I took the cash, the clothes, and the stinky shoes. My brother took the guns.

And the dumpster divers of Long Beach got the first crack at some pretty bad porn.

The Day After - part one

I woke up from a dreamless sleep and it took all of 30 seconds for reality to wash over me like one of the waves at Bolsa Chica where my dad would take Number 2 and I every summer weekend. Those waves could flip you up and pound you into the sandy bottom before you could regain your balance and find your way to the surface. I felt like I had been pounded into the sand.

I'm the last person to wake up. Number 2 and my Mom are feeding the Chicken. It's difficult to get too down about things when the Chicken looks up at you and yells "Happy!"

"Do we need to go to the funeral home today?," asked Number 2.

"The only thing we need to do today is make an appointment with the funeral home," I replied.

"We aren't going to go there today?" This kid is asking a lot of questions and I haven't even had a Coke yet.

"Nope. We'll make the appointment for Saturday. I can't even wrap my brain around what's going on and I'm not ready to talk to them today. Let's wait for tomorrow."

I grab a phone and call the funeral home. It's like calling any other corporate call center. I'm going to hate dealing with these people.

I make an appointment with a Sales counselor for 10:00 a.m. on Saturday and relay the news to Number 2. He's already spoken to his manager and will be off work through the end of next week.

It's time for me to talk to somebody at work. I go back to my bedroom and call The Confidant. We met as I was starting my career in management at my company and she was completely changing her career path. The Powers That Be put us together in an office five years ago and both of us reaped the rewards of this new working relationship. Simply put, she is my best friend at work.

She let me talk for a bit and told me how sorry she was. I'm not one to show too much emotion and I think I surprised her with how upset I was. She felt bad too because she was about to leave on a pretty big vacation the next Tuesday and wouldn't be able to come to the memorial service. I asked if we could go out to lunch on Monday and she was more than happy to.

After that, I spoke with my manager. I've known her since the first day she hired in at our company and our paths had crossed many times over the last 10 years. I told her that I needed to take at least next week off and maybe some additional time after that. She was so kind and empathetic. I could tell that my grief was starting to get to her and she was starting to choke up too.

Of all the managers that I've had over the years, I'm so happy that I'm working for this one as I go through this.

I put the phone down and get dressed. I head back to the living room and tell Number 2 what I want to do next.

"We need to go to Dad's and get all of the guns and the cash out of that house."

VW

The Longest Night - conclusion

I've stayed up all night plenty of times in my life. Sometimes it was waiting in line for concert tickets (I got 8th row at the Rose Bowl for Music for the Masses in 1988!). Sometimes it was running up and down the Las Vegas strip. But I've never really had to deal with any type of insomnia before tonight.

There was still some time left before I felt comfortable calling the Commander. Instead of calling her, I started to leave voicemails for people at work. I was still on vacation but I was scheduled to return to work after the weekend. I knew that wasn't going to be possible. I was starting to wonder if returning to work was ever going to be possible.

I ended up only calling one person at work. I know that she'll tell everyone that might need to know what is happening. I don't even know what I said. I'm now to the point were I don't care if people see or hear me cry. Grief is now less of an emotion and more like physical pain. I feel like a cartoon character that has been shot with a cannon so that all can see right through their cartoon stomach.

It's time to call the Commander. She picks up on the third ring.

"What's going on?" she says.

Words stop working for me. They come out of my mouth but the syntax is all screwed up. I must sound like Yoda ("Dead he is my father").

"Commander. My father passed away last night."

"Are you joking with me?" the Commander screamed.

"No. I'm not."

The Commander surprised me when she started to cry. She is definitely closer to my mom than my dad but since the Chicken was born, my dad had become a weekly guest at our house on Sundays. I guess she had warmed up to him much more than I realized because of those visits.

"I was just with him on Wednesday!" she sobbed.

My Dad had taken the Chicken and the Commander out to by phones for all of us the previous Wednesday. I had never owned a cell phone myself and both of them had made fun of me for it the last Sunday that he came over.

"Do you want me to come home?" she asked.

I didn't. She was having the time of her life at Space Camp and getting paid to go to boot. Plus, my dad thought it was the coolest thing ever and couldn't wait to hear about it and see pictures.

"Do you think he saw the picture of me in my flight suit? I sent it to him yesterday."

I didn't have the heart to tell her that I was pretty sure he never saw it. She would figure that out upon her return.

I told her that I had been up all night and how tired I was. Besides being the Commander, she is also my little residential pharmacist. I knew she had something that I could take that would help me sleep but I didn't know where it was or what it was even called.

She let me cry some more - even though I was sounding like Sloth from the Goonies as I attempted to speak through the tears.

And then she had to go.

I told her to try to enjoy her time there. It is truly what my dad would have wanted.

She told me that she loved me and I told her the same. I couldn't wait to have her back.

Our phone call ended around 5:30 in the morning. I rolled over to her side of our bed and finally fell into a dreamless sleep.

VW

The Longest Night - part two

I got back to my home a little after 10 p.m. It is remarkable how much your life can change in such a short period of time. It's even more remarkable how much of the time, your life isn't really changing at all.

My Mom comes up from San Diego every week and stays with us to watch the Chicken on Thursdays and Fridays. She's still awake but the Chicken is fast asleep in her Madeline-themed room.

I don't really remember what my Mom said to me. I just remember standing in our front room and for the first time (and not the last) I started to cry. This wasn't some Chief Ironeyes Cody tear slowly rolling down my cheek either. This was full-blown-Charles Schultz-Charlie Brown-tears-leaping-from-my-eyes-like-a-lawn-sprinkler crying.

The Chicken had recently started covering up her eyes to try to hide from my wife and I. For some reason, I imitated her as I stood in front of my Mom.

She did her best to console me and she almost immediately hit upon something that was really hurting me.

"Baby, you are too young to be going through this."

That was it. I WAS too young to be going through this. My dad was only 62. This entire situation could be summed up in two words - it's bullshit.

Number 2 was going to be here soon and I wanted to compose myself before he arrived. I started heading to the bedroom but before I left I found myself yelling at my Mom.

"You had better plan on being here for at least another 30 years because I can not handle going through this again anytime soon!"

She promised me that she wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

While I was changing clothes, I heard Number 2 show up. I gave him some time alone with our Mom.

My parents have been divorced for 23 years and haven't really had much contact during that time. Ever since I was 12, I've been uncomfortable when the two of them were in the same room together. It usually meant that either myself or Number 2 was in trouble (okay...let's not kid ourselves here, it wasn't me that was getting into trouble). After my Mom remarried, it got to be a whole new type of uncomfortable.

There wasn't much to talk about this night. We sat in silence drinking Cokes and I turned on Big Brother 6 which had been Tivo'ed earlier this evening.

My mom got a blanket out for Number 2 and he went to sleep on the couch. (My Mom sleeps on an aerobed in the living room). I headed off to bed.

Anybody that knows me probably won't be surprised to find out that I fall asleep with the television on every night. The Tonight Show was on and I started watching Jay.

Then Conan came on.

Then it was Carson Daly.

Then it was Jay again.

Then Conan again....DAMN IT WHY CAN'T I GO TO SLEEP!!!

How can you be so tired and so wide awake?

I needed to talk to somebody but there was nobody to talk to at O dark : 30.

I sent an email to my best friend, the Rabbi, to let him know what was happening. He was leaving in just 10 days to live in Israel again for a year. At least my Dad passed in time for the Rabbi to come to the services. It would have been terrible to go through this without him.

It was still about an hour a way from being able to call the Commander at Space Camp to let her know what was going on. But my grandmother wakes up early every day to pray for about...oh I don't know.....ten gazillion people so I thought I'd give her a call.

She picks up on the first ring.

I cry some more as I talk to her. I feel terrible that she has to bury a son but all of her sisters have had to do that as well. My father and I had just attended a memorial service for one of his younger cousins in the spring.

I ask her about what she would like us to do regarding my dad's memorial service. She tells me that Number 2 and I should do whatever we feel is the right thing to do.

So there it is.

If I had any doubts of it before, I know now that I'm officially an adult. With my brother, I'm going to make funeral arrangements for our father. How weird does that sound?

I get off the phone with my grandma and look at the clock. The Commander could call me at any time but I'll wait another 30 minutes to call her.

I'm going to tell her that my father is dead and I'm going to have to relive the entire experience of the previous night while doing it.

The Longest Night - part one

The anonymous white van from the mortuary pulled away from my father's house and I was left outside with a receipt for my father's remains along with a contact number for setting things in motion for his memorial services.

With me still are Number 2, M, Moondoggie and Gidget, and Big Daddy. It's 9:00 p.m. and the last of Jet Blue's arrivals to Long Beach airport are streaming in one by one directly over our heads.

There's really not much left to do tonight except for locking up the place but I really don't want to go inside.

"VW, if you want I'll lock up and close the windows but it really isn't that bad in there," Moondoggie says. Moondoggie is ten years older than me but at first glance you'd think I was older than him. Many days of surfing and probably one too many Natural Lights has kept him from looking 45.

I replay the conversation with the cop that I had a couple hours earlier. My dad did cut himself and there is blood in the house. I'm not squeemish about blood. Believe me, I've cleaned up things that you haven't even had nightmares about. But it's HIS blood and I just think it will be very sad to see it.

I decide to go in with Moondoggie and the first thing I notice is that the brand new Lazy Boy chair is almost directly in front of the 60-inch Sony Wega. Must have been the paramedics that moved it when they responded to the initial 911 call.

There is also a distinct smell in the house. One that I haven't come across before. It was a sweet but sickly smell. It isn't overwhelming but it is definitely present. I can't wait to get this house cleaned up.

There's puddle of blood about the size of a dinner plate at the base of a dining room table. It doesn't take someone from CSI to figure out that this is where my father fell. His Coke-bottle eyeglasses are askew in this puddle. If one had tried to wear them, one would truly be wearing rose-colored glasses.

"See VW, I told you it wasn't that bad." He's right. It's not. I've seen worse.

There is also some blood spattered througout the kitchen. It looks like he may have cut himself (on the arm?) and walked (stumbled?) to where he fell. I'm going to have to call someone to come out and clean this blood up. I can't do it.

Tonight wasn't the time or the place to take anything out of my dad's house but I was concerned that someone might sieze this opportunity to break in. There wasn't much of any monetary value to take with the exception of quite a few guns and a few hundred dollars in cash. In the end, I decided to leave just about everything there until Number 2 and I had a chance to wrap our heads around what was going on.

I removed his eyeglasses from his blood puddle and put them into a Nextel bag that he must have gotten when he went out with my wife and the Chicken to buy us all cell phones. The Chicken loved pulling his glasses off of his face. I'll wash off the blood and put them up in her room so she will always know that her 'papa' (as she calls him) is keeping an eye out for here. I'll hold the Nextel bag until I get back to my car. Nobody asks me what I'm doing or what I have.

We locked up his place and headed outside.

"We need to get someone in here to clean up this mess," I told Number 2. Number 2 just nodded in agreement.

Moondoggie jumped in, "You guys, I'll clean it up in the morning. Don't worry about it."

I was taken aback by this but I was happy that he was willing to do it. One more thing off of the growing checklist of things that needed to get done.

We said good night to Moondoggie and Gidget. I will always appreciate their incredible kindness.

Big Daddy asked me if we were going to tell my wife, the Commander. She was at Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama as had probably been asleep for a couple of hours. Complicating matters just a little bit, the Commander also has a phobia of hearing about a death of someone close to her over the phone.

My initial reaction was to enforce a news blackout and not let her know what was had happened. She was going to be home in 3 days and I knew that I didn't want her to miss out on what turned out to be one of the most rewarding weeks of her professional life. It was decided right there - don't tell the Commander.

And then Number 2 let's me know that he's already left her a voice mail.

He didn't say that my dad had died but it would probably be pretty clear that nothing good was happening with us. So immediately after imposing the news black out, it was lifted. I left her another voice mail asking her to call me in the morning. We'd talk about what was happening. She'd be nervous. She might even think it was something with my dad. But at least she could brace herself for this news.

After that, nothing else needed to be completed tonight. Life had just been turned upside down for both me and Number 2. We were going to need some sleep.

I didn't want Number 2 going home alone and our Mom was staying at my house so I invited him to come spend the night. He said he would but that he needed to stop by his place first.

"Number 2, this is going to suck for a while," I told him. "But we are going to get through this."

"Do we need to go to the mortuary tomorrow?" Number 2 asked.

"I'll make the appointment tomorrow for Saturday. There's no need to rush things," I replied.

Big Daddy approached us and asked if there was anything we needed to do. There wasn't. It was time to go. Then, Big Daddy gave me a hug and gave Number 2 a hug. If nothing else, there was still going to be someone in my life that I could look to as a father figure. It just wasn't going to be my father anymore.

We all went our separate ways in separate cars and I made a bee-line out of Long Beach. It was almost 10 p.m. and I was already exhausted.

Too bad that this was just the beginning of the longest night.

VW

Where do we go from here?

I'm finding that I'm really enjoying getting these stories documented and I've started to get a little nervous that I might forget some of the things that I wanted to share.

In order to avoid that, I sat down with my wife and quickly came up with a list of topics that I wanted to make sure I hit.

This is much more for me than anyone reading but it may give you a sense of what's to come:

Future subject headings

Buying land in Whittier

Packing with Anne

The Funeral & Reception (aka - Don't hate the player, hate the game)

Crossing over

Stinky shoes

Black Godfather

Dish Nutwork

Blind Email

Here Cometh the Woodlady

Writing the Obit

Spending the night with Janut

Marty's

Movers

LMP

Yaaaaay! I got a cell phone.

Picking the Commander up at the airport

Painting with Big Daddy

Who owes my Dad money???

Unanswerable Questions

Finding the video

Meeting the Lawyer

Dad's Work and the Gentlemen's Club

The Longest Night

This is what I have so far. It won't appear in this order but this gives me a pretty decent road map to follow.

VW

Robot Rollcall

I recognize the people that have gathered in front of my father's house. As I scan them, I feel as if I'm doing a bizarre version of the opening theme to Mystery Science Theater 3000...you know, the part with the robot rollcall (Cam-bot/Gypsy/Tom Servo/Croooooooooooow!).

Number 2 is there and he's with M. I haven't been sure about their relationship for quite some time (Girlfriend??? Just friends??? Friend with benefits???) but she showed up here on the worst night of his life. Seems to me there is at least a strong friendship there.

Moondoggie and Gidget are there too. They are our tenants that live in the front of the duplex. They moved in 22 years ago after getting married when they were 23. Their teenage daughter isn't around on this night, she's at Downtown Disney. I would find out that Moondoogie actually found my father.

Mr. and Mrs. Stream are there too. They are friends of my grandmother. I have no idea what they are doing here.

Officier Macias is in his black and white, doing whatever cops do when they respond to a situation like this.

I ask Number 2 if he is okay.

"I'm okay. The cop wants to talk to you," he replies.

I pull him away from M for a second. "I know this sucks but we are going to get through this. I'm going to need you to help me make some decisions."

"Got it," says Number 2. "I'm gonna go burn one and walk down the street a bit. Go talk to the cop."

Number 2 starts smoking immediately and walks with M down the street. I go talk to the cop.

Officier Macias looks like he just got out of the academy. Very young, hispanic, and probably 6 to 8 inches shorter than me.

He shakes my hand and offers his condolences. It is surprisingly sincere. Officier Macias has concluded his investigation and concluded that there was no foul play. He doesn't mention anything about my father's guns. (There was a small arsenal in there. Think Ruby Ridge). He recommends that I do not go in and see my father. He had fallen and cut his head open pretty good.

Now I don't know about the rest of you but when a cop says, "Y'know, you probably don't want to see his remains," I had NO problem following his advice.

Speaking of his remains, Officier Macias mentioned that they had also started to get a little ripe. It would be unclear when exactly he died. He spoke with people the night before but nobody had talked to him on this day. The windows were closed and it was a warm day in Long Beach so he probably passed sometime that morning. I would later find eggshells in the kitchen sink. I think he had a chance to have a last breakfast.

Next steps were going to be to get a police report number from Officier Macias and to contact a mortuary service to take my father's remains. He had some work to attend to back at his cruiser so I turn my attention to the other people present.

Mr. and Mrs. Stream told me that they had just seen my father at a funeral of a 28 year old kid the day before. My father didn't know the kid but had gone to represent our family since my grandmother couldn't make it. They told us that if we needed anything that they were more than willing to help. I don't even really remember that they were leaving but the next thing I knew, they were gone.

Moondoggie and Gidget were still outside with us. She brought us chairs from their dining room but nobody was in the mood to sit. My father would call out to Gidget, "THERE GOES THE PURTIEST GIRL IN ALL OF LONG BEACH" whenever she went to the garage to take laundry to the dryer. They are not going to ask us tonight but I can already feel their angst about what are my brother and I going to do with this duplex. Gidget tells me that besides her parents house, it is the only home she's ever known. They pay next to nothing for the place. My father raised the rent twice in 22 years. I haven't talked to Number 2 yet about it but I already know that we're keeping the place.

I ask Number 2 to contact a mortuary. I need to involve him in this process enough so that he knows he held his own tonight but I need to make sure I don't put too much on him as well. Moondoggie brings him the yellow pages.

Another car pulls up. It's my father-in-law, Big Daddy (long story...I'll tell it another time). He doesn't say much. He never does. Since I started dating his daughter 12 years ago, he has always treated me like a son. Tonight, he extends that to my brother as well.

Officier Macias concludes his work and lets us know that he is going to leave. I still need to write that kid a letter to the Police Chief. He was everything that you would want a cop to be in that situation. Calm, caring, professional.

We wait for quite some time before the guys from the mortuary show up. Talking about just about anything except the fact that my father is dead on the floor inside.

Finally, a plain white van pulls up and two black men get out. They offer their condolences and get all of my contact information before going to work. We all stay outside while listening to the two men move around the house. All of the windows are open and I can pretty much hear everything. They are struggling to get him on the gurney (he was a big man...not a fat man...but a big man).

They come out to ask for help and Moondoggie volunteers. Finally, they get him on the gurney and they are coming out.

"I can't watch this," said Number 2 and he heads with M down the street.

I watch as they struggle to get the gurney out of the duplex. My father is leaving for the final time and he's going out feet first.

The gurney passes me and I say goodbye to my father for the last time.

"Bye, Pop."

VW

The drive...

The 22 freeway has been a mess since I moved to Orange County and it was no different on this night.

I started to get angry about the traffic but I realized my Dad wasn't going anywhere...at least not without my signature. I thumbed my cell phone but decided not to call anyone while driving. Visions of a screaming headline in the OC Register "MAN DIES WHILE DRIVING TO CLAIM FATHER'S BODY" popped into my head.

Then it dawned on me that this was going to be the last bit of time to myself for a long time. Relatives would be coming into town. Friends would be checking on me. My father's friends were going to want to know what was going on. I had about 25 minutes to think hard about what I needed to do next. Here's the list I came up with:

1. Take care of my younger brother, Number 2.
2. Contact a funeral home and make arrangements for my Dad's remains.
3. Make sure that his home was secure.
4. Tell my wife - who was out of the state - what had just happened.

Driving back to Long Beach that night was like a countdown to reality. It really felt like my Dad wasn't really dead until I pulled up to his place and saw for myself. I had been in Long Beach earlier in the day and had a great time at the Aquarium with my Mom and my daughter (we call her Chicken). But with dusk approaching and knowing what I was driving to, Long Beach didn't look very fun anymore.

I exited the freeway and weaved through the streets of my childhood. I went the back way to my Dad's house driving past rows of duplexs that were built in the 1950's. Too many people are living in them today. Either that or the occupants simply have too many cars because parking is a bitch. I make a right and turn onto my Dad's street.

There's a police car out in front.

My brother is talking with a cop and some other people. And inside the house that I grew up in, my father is on the floor of the living room in a small pool of his own blood.

I pulled over and parked. Things started to get very real very fast.

VW

It starts with the phone call...

The phone call came after my mother-in-law came over to tell me that our phone had been off of the hook and my brother was trying to call me.

(My daughter likes playing with the phone and we let her because it is cute when she holds it up to her ear and says "hullo hullo.")

When my mother-in-law told me that my brother had been unable to get through, I looked for the phone and saw that it had been activated for 90 minutes.

I hung up the phone and called my brother - whom I'll be referring to as Number 2 (he's the second and final child my parents had but it's also funny to call him Number 2...if you have a fifth grade sense of humor, you understand).

I could tell he was agitated and driving. Something was wrong with Dad and he was heading over to his house right now. He was just a couple of miles from my father's house and I was about 20 miles away. There was no point in two of us racing over there at the same time - we had had false alarms about my father's health before.

"Just get there and call me when you do. I'll be waiting here for your call," I said to him. He ended the call and immediately another phone call came through. It was my uncle.

"VW, this is your Uncle. I'm sorry to tell you this. Your dad is gone"

Those are very strange words to hear. I can feel my brain shutting down all emotions and start to power back up like a computer in safe mode. I've got decisions to make. A younger brother to take care of. And I don't have time to be upset or grieve.

And how did I respond to my uncle?

"Okay."

That's all I could say. I couldn't tell him that I was sorry that his only brother had just died. I couldn't tell him that I had been a block away from my father's house only three hours prior to this phone call but I didn't stop by to say hi. I just said "Okay."

"VW, let me put your grandmother on the phone."

Both of my father's parents are still alive. They are 89 and 88. My grandfather has lost all of his hearing. My grandmother has lost her sight. The function together like MasterBlaster from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

I don't care how old you are, a mother should never have to bury a child. My grandmother's heart was broken.

She was crying and saying stuff to me but I was already on to what I needed to do next. Both my mother and mother-in-law were looking at me for clues as to what was going on but it is hard to read someone when they are just going through a mental checklist.

I got off the phone and told them both that I needed to go to my father's house because he had passed away. It was 6:00 p.m. on July 14th. I was heading to the 22 west to drive the 20 miles back to the house I grew up in to meet my brother and to begin what would be an amazing journey.

VW

What the hell is this blog???

I know that I'm getting into this blogging thing a little late in the game and I've wanted to do it for some time...I just didn't have anything to write about.

Until now.

On July 14th of this year, my father passed away.

This isn't going to be a pity party (poor me....poor me....pour me another drink!). I just wanted to chronicle my experiences as I deal with the death of a parent. If you get something out of it, great. If you don't, that's cool too. But unless you die before your parents do or if they died before you were old enough to know what the hell was going on, you will be dealing with this too.

What I've found so far is that I didn't know a pain like this could possibly exist. I also didn't know that even with the death of a parent hanging over you like a black cloud, there is humor.

I don't know how long I'll go with this blog but I'm sure I'll be bouncing back and forth between the laughter and the pain of this process. The name of this blog comes straight from my father. Whenever we made a joke at his expense or if we did something that he didn't like, he would immediately say to us, "you are out of the will." He was joking of course. I'm in the will. My brother is in the will. And my wife and daughter are also represented in the will. In the end, nobody was "out of the will." But we sure heard that phrase an awful lot.

VW