State Street Show

Imagine running a marathon. Imagine it being emotional.

Today I felt that way after going into my father's apartment and going through his belongings. The day started with me going to the funeral home and signing all the legal documents needed to start the wheels in motion in order to have him cremated and shipped to New York for his burial.

After that I met with one of his many friends, Carol, who is wonderful. We talked at the cafe where my father took me when I was 11 to have a croissant while he had his coffee. We then went to his place where, while Carol cleaned the kitchen, I sifted through all of his papers and documentation so that tomorrow, when it's not a bank holiday, I'm ready to tackle all the bureaucracy starting with a death certificate. Although this sounds very business-like, I did find notebooks and journals that were filled letters and notes to people that were probably never supposed to be read by another human being. This blew open my impression of a man who I'd talk to once a month unless there was a holiday or birthday.

The defining moment came when I found his cell phone and listened to the messages people who loved him enough to call his cell phone after he died called to leave some very emotional messages.

After meeting some more of his friends, I went back to his apartment and had a conversation of my own.

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I was 11 years old when I was lucky enough to be able to go to Disney World for the second year in a row with my parents. It was a pretty sweet deal for me, though. My mother was there for one week while my father was there for the other while I stayed for both. By the end of the two weeks, I was some sort of pro at Disney World.

There was a time where both my parents were together in Florida and my mother had gotten a rental car. Being new and strange, some things weren't evidently known about how to operate certain things. This includes the high beams. Somehow, they were turned on and my dad, who was driving, couldn't figure out how to turn them off. With each person who drove by flashing their brights to let us know ours were on, he got more and more agitated that he couldn't figure out how to turn off those high beams.

Eventually we figured it out but I still get a kick out of thinking about him getting so agitated about such a thing.

I hope he's proud of me.