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
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
posted by JVW at 9:16 PM
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