Punched his own ticket. [My father died]

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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My father died. Last Monday. After talking about it with numerous family members and friends, I didn’t have anything left to say here. What prompted me to post was Dinsdale’s thread in IMHO.

According to my mom and my sister, that’s exactly what he did. He was capable of making his wants known, and like Eva Luna’s grandmother, he was unable to swallow. He said no to a feeding tube. He’d seen other people hang on as shells of human beings, and that’s not what he wanted. So he punched his own ticket. “Like Thor Heyerdahl,” I’ve been telling people.

I’d said for years that I wanted to bury him with a computer mouse in his hand. But he’s been cremated. No viewing, no funeral. His brother died earlier this year. His cousins are gone; his old-time friends are gone. He went to all their funerals, and now there’s no one to go to his.

If I had posted about this, it might have been a Pit thread of my mom. Saturday the 2nd, I got a text from her. “How was the party? Your father has been hospitalized.” According to Mr. Rilch, I turned green. When I was able to get her on the phone, I gave her a big fat piece of my mind. She knew damn well that FIL had just gotten out of the hospital after a scary chest-pains incident. You don’t just say “Your father is in the hospital, end transmission.” After that, she promised to keep me up to date, which she did for a while, until last Sunday when I didn’t hear from her. And I didn’t hear from her on Monday. And on Tuesday, I got another text: "Dad died at 11:55 yesterday morning. Tell no one except [husband]. Do not call me or [sister]. I cannot talk at this time. My other sister got the same text, except it was her children who got the exception (she’s divorced). We both agreed, though, that we would tell whoever we bloody well wanted outside the family.

It’s been slowly sinking in. We weren’t close, as y’all may have gathered from my posts here. I feel like Stella in The Brimstone Wedding, talking about her husband’s death.

I wouldn’t say I was utterly indifferent, but I think it will hit me harder when FIL dies. I talk to him more often, and we don’t have the horrible history my father and I do.

Anyway. My father was 87. He would have been 88 on August 13th. And to lighten the mood, I submit this anecdote.

When he was 12 years old, he took his own father’s car for a joyride. Poppy was in the habit of coming home and tossing his keys on the kitchen table. My dad snagged them, and don’t ask me how he started up the car without anyone hearing it and looking out the window, but he did, and he cruised around the neighborhood. Now, this was 1940, and it wasn’t called “standard” transmission because there was no automatic. Shifting gears was just what you had to do. And since this community had a lot of hills, he must have had to do a bit of shifting. But he got the car back in one piece, right about the time his absence was being noticed. “How did you know what to do?” “I’d watched my father.”

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Rilchiam, I’m sorry you didn’t have the greatest relationship with your dad. I hope you can come to terms with all that and with everything surrounding his death and find peace. Hugs.

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For the last twenty years, my mom repeatedly stated her with that Dad would die first so she could have a few years alone. The one time she met FIL and FIL’s wife, she warned FILwife about the perils of having a retired husband: “You’re STUCK with him! I’m STUCK with this one!” So naturally, she fell apart in the immediate aftermath. My sister tells me that on the first night, she (mom) woke up every hour crying. I’ve spoken to her since then and she sounds normal, but, again naturally, now she’s reminiscing about all the good times. The Broadway tryouts in New Haven, for instance. The vacation in Atlantic City. Sigh. I mean, it wasn’t a shotgun marriage or anything; I’m sure there were good times, but t’would have been nice if she’d tried holding on to those memories prior to this.

She’s said she’s staying in the house. The grief counselor (arranged by the hospital) told her not to make any major decisions, if they can’t be avoided, for at least six months. Although she probably would keep the house even without that advice. What I wonder, though, is what she’s going to do with all his stuff. They’re (were) both hoarders, as I may also have mentioned. Each thought their own stuff was crucial and the other’s was junk. Wonder how she’s seeing it now.

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Funny how a lot of little memories are trickling in. Like remembering how he liked Pink Panther movies. Or seeing a gas can, and hearing him say “Never have a metal gas can in the car; only a plastic one.” It’s the tidbits like that that keep someone around, I supposed. Life is not made up entirely of dramatic moments.

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Rilchiam, please accept my condolences. These deaths are hard no matter the relationship.

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Very sorry for your loss.

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I’m sorry for your loss, Rilchiam. Thanks for sharing your memories here with us.

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I’m sorry for your loss.

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I’m so sorry, Rilchiam.

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Thanks to all who offered condolences.

Okay, I talked to my mom again. She still has not told anyone in her family. And even though I’m going to see my cousins next month, she does not want me to tell them. She says her sister’s family will “gloat”, and her brother’s family will ask too many questions. I said “Well, they’ll find out sometime,” and she said she’ll deal with that when the time comes. Kind of disturbing. I mean, people sometimes jokingly say, “I haven’t heard from/you haven’t mentioned so-and-so for a while; is he dead?” and in this case, he is.

And another micro-memory. Even though my dad was the first born, his brother was still the number-one son. Mom used to berate him for going out of the way for his mother, “You’re not going to get anything back; big fat [brother] does nothing for her, and he’s still the golden child!” and once ended an argument with “Oh, go call your mother!” So when I told Mr. Rilch, “I’m gonna call my mother,” that’s what I heard in my head.

As for me, I’ve been watching death episodes of TV shows. Upstairs Downstairs, with everyone processing Lady Margery’s death. Roseanne, when her father died. Bernie Mac, when his uncle dies. That’s especially poignant, because it has Vanessa being forced to accept that her mother might as well be dead. Yes, I need TV characters to do my feeling for me. I was so numb at first, that’s what it took.

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{{{{Rilchaim}}}}

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Checking in Rilchiam. How are you doing?

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Funny you should ask. When my mom broke the news to me and ordered me to tell no one (well, inside the family; hell if I wasn’t going to talk to my friends), I thought that was so she could tell people in her own way. Instead, she just doesn’t want anyone to know. At least not in her family, which comes pretty much to the same thing. Everyone in my dad’s family has either already passed on or is beyond comprehending this.

So even though I’m supposed to see my cousins, and some of their parents, who are my mom’s siblings, next month, I’m not supposed to tell any of them! Mom won’t be going to this shindig. Partly because she can’t fly on planes any more, but also because she’s just getting strange. She seriously thinks she can live out the rest of her life without anyone knowing that her husband died. She says her one sister will “gloat”, other people will “ask too many questions”.

Except, she did tell another cousin, who then told her father (mom’s brother). And mom’s head exploded when bro called to offer condolences. But that’s it, y’know: cat’s out of the bag and chasing down mice. I think this could end up with people making much nastier remarks, like about not eating meat at mom’s house, than she’s been anticipating. I’m hoping I can reason with her before I go to the reunion, but who knows.

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Sorry for your loss. Man, your mom sounds off. I often think one reason we have family is to have folk model for us how NOT to behave!