Well, I am back after spending a bit over a week with my family, planning and organising the funeral for my Dad. Its been a week of ups and very sad downs, and I feel tired and wrung out.
I arrived on a Friday, and was immediately plunged into the planning of the funeral, with a meeting at the Funeral Home on the Saturday. We met with the extremely tall, very well manicured, but in possession of the freakiest blink on the planet …. Chris, who took us through the paperwork. There were amusing moments … like who voluntarily remembers the name of the wicked witch (aka the stepmother …. or in our case both of them). We managed to lose Dad’s licence for a while, which was entertaining. Found it in my sister’s wallet, the one person who you would expect to NOT lose something.
Thankfully, my father had a funeral plan, which meant that we didn’t have to shoulder the thousands it would have required for even a simple funeral. Still, wading though the paperwork to prise the money out of the insurance company’s hands was interesting.
And then mother arrived. Mother is ex-wife number 1, of 3 …. and has been divorced for decades. WTH she felt is necessarily to bless us with her “just given up smoking” moodiness at this time ….. is beyond me. Chances are she has oodles of unresolved issues with Dad, but by the end of the week, I was ready to wipe her out of my life totally …… she was hurtful and vindictive, at a time we could least able to cope with it. Her fixation with money, and his will, was frustrating.
We had our usual episodes of drama queen behaviour from dad’s siblings, but we managed those ok. On the day of the funeral (Friday 11th June), Mum attempted to hijack the preparations again, and I had to put her in her place. Dad went to god with his Lodge tie on, and a fishing rod. His eulogy was a tribute to his laughter, and his love of fishing. I may post a copy at a later date, along with the order of service. The wake was a tense affair, with all his family that have studiously ignored the three of us these last 20 years. We got lots of instructions to “stay in touch” but I think they realise that there are some bridges that won’t be rebuilt.
Tam and I had planned to have a drink at the end of the day. This just didn’t happen. We were both so wrung out, without any emotional energy to deal with anything. Mum was again her usual abrasive self, and going to bed was the best way to stop her from making us any angrier.
And so, we said goodbye. He is in a lovely shady lawn area, near gum trees that make it look like a river bank. My dad wasn’t a perfect parent. He had faults, and was terrible at being a husband. He could be thoughtless and hurtful, but he also loved us ….. perhaps that is all we should really ask for …. to be loved. I am sad, but I will survive.
