Last night Mary reminded us that Dad had once said that he’d written letters to us in the event that he ever died or was incapacitated. That sounded familiar, so we began to root around in the boxes of papers in my folks house. We came across some really cool stuff, high school pictures,  my parents first budger from 1957 ($43/month for food and transportation for my Mom  !) letters from my grandparents,  love letters from my mom to my dad and from my dad to my mom.. a journal from Dad’s time in the Navy, lots of old pictures, some Navy Medals, newspaper articles,etc.. but no letters..   Eventually we gave up and went out for Mexican food. By 9 o’clock we were all so exhausted that we drifted off to bed..

This morning, Billy woke up and ran off to the airport..Mom,  Mary and I woke much later and started puttering around the house.. trying to feel out the new normal..   I started filling in forms for the the Funeral director while mom and Mary continued to look through papers.   Around 10 mom shouted out that she’d found ‘them’.. the letters from dad ! .. There it was.. in his distinctive  printing  ..

He even put in some of his normal self-deprecating  humor..   ” .. in the event of my death or incompetence (beyond what it has always been)”

Inside there was a stack of the most wonderful letters.. some addressed to mom, some addressed to us kids..l later ones to our wives and kids..even one to his mother.  The first dated from 1976 from before dad went to Israel to organize a motorcycle jumping contest.. .. There were some from the mid 80’s .. and the most recent from 1997 when Dad was having heart surgery.   They were beautifully written and heart felt. The messages were the ones he always gave.. that he wanted us to be happy… He said  not to mourn him as he’d been a happy man with everything he could have wanted.. what a gift to read that…  :-

He also had some practical instructions around what to do in the even of his death.. for example..we learned where the checkbooks were kept. at least where they were 38 years ago..  Then we saw it.. My dad had wanted to be an organ donor… !.. that didn’t surprise us..  we knew that the organs of an 83 year old man are not candidates for transplant.. but that’s when we remembered. Dad had specifically wanted his brain to be donated to Alzheimer’s research.. How could we have forgotten ?!?!?

I quickly called the funeral home.. no it was not too late.. but we had to call the Alzheimer’s Association.. I called them , but they were not able to help.. they told me that such donations had to be arraigned years in advance.. Then my mom remembered that they’d made just such an arrangement  when  she and my dad signed up for a multi year national study on Alzheimer’s called the ‘Hope Study”.. Though they hadn’t participated in several years, my Mom still had the number of the neurologist.. She called him, He called the Alzheimer’s people, They called the funeral director.. and within 2 hours we were able to honor Dads final wish..

After that flurry of activity, we finally sat down to finish reading the letters, in the next paragraph Dad added not to stress out over the donation stuff if we didn’t want  to.. Typical Dad.. he didn’t want to inconvenience anyone..

Around Brian the very nice guy from the Funeral agency came over and we finished the paper  work.. Than we went over to meet with Rabbi Sisenwein from Beth Elohim. He’s helping us do the service for Dad this Friday.   Ma, Mary and I met with the Rabbi for about an hour .. What a great guy..!  (even does Yoga !.. )    We talked about logistics.. and we talked about Dad.  Though my own dance with organized religion has been tough these last couple of years, Our time with the Rabbi  was very satisfying..

I left from the Temple and headed nroth.. traffic was bad.. so I had plenty of time to think abotu the week.. i was strangely happy and sad at the same time. One thing I did do on my drive was listen to a ton of messages folks had left about Dad.. I want you all to knwo how much we appreciate all those messages, emails, FB posts, tweets, smoke signals, vibes, air hugs etc you  aimed our way.. They truly are helping..

OK.. Sleep will also help.. heading there now.. first time in my own  bed in more than a week..

nite all, nite sam

-me

 

ps. My freind Reha wrote me from Turkey today to point out that my Dad is always smiling in his pictures.. ‘Always smiling’.. what a great legacy !