In Memoriam

Thank you for everyone's kind thoughts.

And forgive my rambling, but I think there's something important in the act of remembering.

I had breakfast with my parents Thursday morning. Because they live between my home and work, I drop my puppy by and they keep my dog. My dog adores them.

So I had breakfast with my Dad Thursday morning.

For reasons I cannot imagine now, he was asking about Neanderthals. He must have seen something on TV about them. And, as conversations often do, it subject jumped to the way that there were entire cities in the Eastern U.S. before Columbus 'discovered' it or before Desoto came through the area, exemplified by the archeological digs in Moundville, and what they're tearing apart to build a Walmart in Oxford.

I mentioned that 'Alabama' literally translates to "thicket-clearers" because, long before Desoto, Alabama was a managed landscape. The Creek Indians (which my Dad always says we were descended from -- alongside British settlers) were farmers. They hunted deer and turkey, and they farmed squash, corn, and beans. I said, "Just like when you were a kid. Some things never change."

I don't think I said good-bye.

I was running late as usual and just walked out the door. The last sight was of my Mom handing my Dad toast and his using the very last of the apple butter. He said, "The only thing that would make this better is if we had fig preserves."

Mom teased. "We're out. Wonder who ate the last one."

Dad chuckled. "I did."

And I remembered the end of last summer, when Dad was still bringing in figs from the tree that he had planted in the back yard (and the one he planted in my yard... and the one he planted in my sister's), with Mom saying not to bring in 'any more damn figs' because she was tired of making preserves and couldn't they stop producing yet? Soon, I thought, Dad will be bringing in more figs...

I got the call from my Mom about 45 minutes later. My coffee wasn't even yet cold.

She was panicked and the paramedics were at the house. By the time I reached the house, the paramedics were gone as was the ambulance. Mom's neighbors were with her, but as she got in the car with me to drive to the hospital... she knew.

My sister, my brother-in-law, and my eldest nephew met us at the hospital, but the doctors could never revive him. Their best guess is that he died of heart afib. Dad had a heart problem since birth which led to an enlarged heart, which in turn led to chronic heart fibrillation.

In simple terms, his heart simply stopped and didn't start back again.

It was that quick. I tell myself he was happy to the end. That he never suffered. He almost certainly never even knew.  It hurts us, but he didn't.

My Dad was 79 and has been married to my Mom for 59 years.

In addition to Mom, myself, my sister, my sister's husband, and my sister's three kids, Dad is survived by seven siblings, five of whom were at the funeral (he was one of 12), including my Dad's oldest brother William, who is 94 years old and who is looking surprisingly able and well and his oldest sister Earsie who is 92 and has been ill but who is still bright-eyed and quick (she was a chemistry professor for most of her career).

Our immediate family being more the type to make jokes about the flying spaghetti monster than hymns, my nephew set up Bose speakers so we had secular music that Mom, my sister, and I chose. The following was my eulogy for my Dad (shamelessly conscripted from John Green) and the song that we chose to follow my part:

I wanted to talk about my Dad.

He was a wonderful father. The best that anyone could hope for. Always kind. Always supportive Always good.

He was the most genuinely good person that I've ever known.

And if I keep talking about him, I will sob and burst into tears, so I've chosen to read a passage from "The Fault in Our Stars":

I will talk about math, though I am no mathematician. But I know this:

There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1. There's .1 and .11 and .112.

An infinite collection of numbers.

Of course, there's a bigger set of numbers between 0 and 2. Or between 0 and a million.

Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.

And there are days -- many of them -- when I resent the size of numbers bounding my life. I want more numbers than I am likely to get. And -- God -- I wanted more numbers for my Dad. He deserved more.

But I cannot tell you how thankful I am for every day...for our infinity with my Dad. I wouldn't trade it for the world.

We love him.

He loved us.

He gave us forever in his numbered set of days.

We were blessed.

We are grateful.

We will miss you.

We love you, Papa.

To infinity.

And the song chosen by my Mom