My Dad Is Dead

I'm sitting here in my Dad's chair, wearing his watch, drinking coffee from his cup...

OKay, I've moved to a different seat. Put my coffee in a different mug. Still wearing his watch, though... the watch that the coroner handed to my mom and that she sobbingly handed to me while my Dad... while my Dad just...

Breathe. Do it clinical - a factually accurate and emotionally devoid recounting of the events.

At approximately 6pm on December 6th 2013 my Dad went in to the bathroom and had a heart attack. He hit his head on the shower door on his way down which is the assumed cause of the cut across the bridge of his nose.

We had just dropped Indi (our Rent-A-Daughter who is staying with us to help out around the house while I'm driving back-and-forth-and-back all the time) with her Bio-Family in Anacortes and were on our way to Mount Vernon for a weekend of helping out with my Dad, when my phone rang. Whenever my phone has rang in the past *year*, we've known that it wasn't good news; this time it was my Sister, Beth.

"Jim is Dead".

We got to the house before the Coroner. The fire department and a police officer were there already. My Dad's body was in the hallway, right between the bathroom and his bedroom - I could see the top of his head poking out from under the blanket that they had put over him. My mom was sitting in a chair at the livingroom-end of the hallway with her back to my Dad's body, trying to explain something to the Police officer through her sobs and tears. I knelt down to hug her and started crying in to her shirt.

The coroner came and ruled out foul play - My mom had been put on hold by the Hospice Care people and so she hung up and called 911, which brought the Emergency Response unit and the police and since it was handled that way, the coroner had to be called out. Since the Hospice Care representative was now there with us, she took care of calling the people at Evan's Funeral Parlor (in Anacortes) for us, then left.

SO for about 45 minutes it was just Me, Mom, Beth, Crystal and Molly. And my Dad's body, laying in the hallway.

(Crystal did an excellent job of keeping Molly away from seeing her Grampy like that - Molly was escorted in to my Mom's bedroom where she could watch cartoons)

At one point I found myself all alone at the end of the hallway, just staring at my Dad's covered body and crying uncontrollably. The top of his head, the tips of his fingers, the shapeless twisted mass covered by a blanket just laying there on the ground, not moving, not breathing... not just *dead*, more like "He's not here any more".

I wiped away the tears and rejoined the family in the livingroom, I think maybe stronger for the hallway experience.

Our conversation was strange and surreal. Should we get him off the floor? Should we wait till Jan (my other Sister) got there in case she wanted to see him? DId we call everyone to let them know? We better call everybody. Who are we forgetting???

Most of the really important people to contact, we couldn't get hold of right away. Jan's phone was off, Butch (my brother) was asleep... we ended up calling everybody several times before the people from Evans Funeral Parlor showed up.

Lenny from Evans Funeral really helped things for us - friendly, respectful, warm... he and the kid-in-a-suit that was with him took care of everything. They loaded my Dad's body on to a royal-blue stretcher and then came to say that it was time to go... would we like to say goodbye?

One at a time, we all said our final farewells. One at a time, we all cried.

And then he left.