Of course I would write about today. It has been a very long time and yet I remember snatches of the day very clearly. Was the really the first time we were all together without our spouses in one place as adults? It seems to me it was. I remember the false alarm...do you remember that? When he began the morphine and was hallucinating and waving his arms, mom was really freaked out and called Pastor Immendorf. Dad woke up with Pastor standing over him and asked, "What the hell are you doing here?"
The actual day was sunny and warm. I remember Stevie was sitting on top of the picnic table when Mike came around the corner of the house. I knew it wasn't good, but OH, I was so glad it was Mike that came. I think he came because I was out at the store and he probably called and he didn't want to leave a message, so he just came and got me. I remember arguing around the dinner table about whether to have a viewing or not as Dad didn't like them. But he was first, last and always a Mason, and they did a service at the funeral home, so that answered that question pretty quick. I didn't watch Steve Lankanau take Dad away,did any of us? But the night of the viewing there were so many people! Even Cotter the old "hell raiser". I remember reading at the funeral service. And the reception afterwards in the parish hall of the church where we sat and talked and laughed with the Pennells! Talk about bizarre!
And a week after he died, I came in the backdoor of my house and his smell was there....the smell of him after coming home from work. I was bewildered and sort of creeped out for a minute. But then, I thought he had stopped by to see the kids one last time and how could that bother me?
John's right. I don't think of him every day. Many days go by with nary a thought of him. But just now at the end of May, beginning of June which has always heralded much fun and laughter for our family (due to birthdays by the hundreds and anniversaries and even Memorial Day)it's like we all turn and look towards our old homestead and think and remember. We stop for just a few minutes maybe more often than before and our hearts thud a little harder in our chests and our throats get a little tight and we even sometimes still weep on June 4. But it's okay, because we are doing this together even though we aren't standing right next to each other. And I know in one way or another I will hear from all of you and that will make it all right.
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It's a really peculiar set of remembrances. I think that the only things I "remember" of the day are a very short list, but I'm not sure that they even happened the way I remember. I remember being in the kitchen of 710 doing some unknown domestic task, and thinking I hear/felt a disturbance in the bedroom. I think Connie came out and said that "he's gone". My memory says I walked calmly into the bedroom and found Dad lying breathlessly on the bed, and sat down next to him on the bed. In my memory - he exhaled one more time at that moment. Is this what happened? I don't know. It took reading this to "remember" that I drove over to see/get you. Did I do that? It is so hazy, but you are right - I would not have left a message. I believe I did "look" when Steve took Dad from the house and even wondered if I should, or maybe even could, help with that task. Somehow I felt that I wanted to be helping with the journey, still. I also vaguely, yet strongly remember my sense of hopelessness at John arriving "after-the-fact". To me that time between the two of them was possibly more tragically painful to me, then even it was for John. I don't know why, I just felt deeply pained, and wished that something somehow fairy tale like, there would be some melding of their minds on Dad's deathbed.
The days after- extremely fuzzy, except for the long parade of people through Lankenaus. Did we stand in that line for days? It felt so, and it felt good to know that he had left an apparently positive impression on so many. I think this was the first time I appreciated how little I knew my own Dad. That impression still lingers for me. I've lived over 40% of my life without him, but the presence still lingers - like the scent in the back door at 321 Hawthorne on that day. Thanks for writing, too.
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