almost headed home

My ticket home is for tomorrow.. I admit I have mixed feelings. I think my mom will be OK - in some ways, she's more OK with this whole thing than I am - but there's still a lot to be done.

I've done what I can to help with the paperwork and I am heading home with a scan of my dad's death certificate on my flashdrive (which is weird and sad, as you might expect) in case there are more things it's needed for: my mom isn't really comfortable using e-mail even though I offered to set her up with an account so I said I'd mail in stuff that needed to be done electronically from my end.

We cleared out his 40+ year career files. (He started teaching in about 1962, and finally retired for good in 2005). Four and a half days of sorting and pitching and it all makes me feel kind of empty about my own career - I've done far less than he had at this point in his career, and I will probably do far less. Then again - since I mostly use chalkboard and Powerpoint for my lectures, when I'm gone, all people will have to do is clean the board one last time and wipe my computer's hard drive. (We went through mounds of overhead transparencies, which can only be thrown out - no way to recycle them like the boxes and the office paper).

You work so hard all your life and in the end there's not a lot to show for it.

Although maybe that's the point, maybe that's what we're being pushed to understand - that all you really have is the now, and you do your best in the now to do good for others and to be happy yourself, and that's really all.

We did go through a few other boxes including a very old one (sat there for 30 years) with books from the old house. All but one of the books went out to recycling; the "survivor" was a total surprise and my mom said she'd even forgotten it - it was an old, old copy of Robinson Crusoe that had been given to HER grandmother (so: my great-grandmother) in 1899 from Great-grandma Julia's grandma...it's a nice old book with illustrations even, and my mother told me if I wanted it, I could have it, so I'm taking it back in my suitcase with me. (Even though I tweeted last night that "maybe I'll just snap and get rid of everything I have except the bare minimum, just so those coming after me don't have a lot of junk to deal with" but honestly? Those family connections make me happy and maybe being (harmlessly) happy in this life is important).

I guess I'm ready to go back to work. I will probably be happier once classes start and I'm back in the familiar round of teaching the stuff I teach every fall, and back doing piano lessons and Bell Choir and everything else. Right now I feel kind of sad and at loose ends and I admit the last day or two I've been a bit more short-tempered with my mom than I should be, but....that's one of the personality flaws I shared with my dad (I once told someone "we understand each other because we have the same faults") and I remember when something was bothering him he was sometimes shorter or less-patient with people than is ideal. (And I will have to work on my patience again; patience with students is important).

I also found out today that my brother and I will each get (starting very soon, I guess) a small amount of money each year for the next ten years or so (if I did the math right and if the stock market doesn't either soar or tank) from an IRA where my dad had set us as beneficiaries. I admit two feelings about this:

- I'd rather have my dad in good health than the money
- I'd rather my mom had it if she needed it (but I think she'll be okay, and if she isn't she'll probably tell me and I can help out).

But yeah, this is all weird and sad and complicated and it's a lot more in-your-face adulting stuff than I'm really emotionally equipped to deal with right now.

One last moment of horrible adulting: last week, down at the funeral home, arranging for the cremation, the funeral director asked us, "The clothes he was wearing. Do you want us to wash them and return them, or do you want him cremated in them?" and my mom looked at me and I could tell in that moment that was just one question too much for her, one decision too many, and God help me if I wasn't an adult before then I became one in that moment because I realized I had to decide. And I took a deep breath and said "Leave the clothes....with him..." because I felt like knowing my dad, he wouldn't want to be cremated naked, and anyway, what would we do with them?

I'll also note that there were a lot of bad old Victorian traditions surrounding death but I am coming around to thinking that maybe official mourning dress was not such a bad one....it saves people asking awkward questions.

I also realized today, and it nearly did me in, that it will probably be months before things begin to feel normal again. I want to feel normal again but I can't, yet.