Pat and I always told the girls: If they put me on life support, step on the air hose!" And I have always said I want to be cremated, and that they should then take the ashes for a ride on a yacht in San Francisco Bay, have a nice meal, then walk over to the side and say, "Oops! There goes Mom!"
So I flew out to San Francisco Friday, February 5. Round trip out of Mason City at a bargain price. (Still not completely paid off, though.) I was staying with Linda and Dick, and they picked me up at the airport. Linda was to host an Open House/Memorial for Pat on Sunday. Saturday the girls came over to check on the arrangements for the Open House. Pat's boss, Keith, was paying for the catering.
A couple of hours after the girls arrived at Linda's, they said, "Well, we're going to go pick up Dad." They came back a couple of hours later with the green funeral home container carried in a dark blue velvet sack. I held them for awhile. Then, as they were getting ready to leave, Jessica said, "Do you want to spend another night with Dad?" I said, "Does he still snore?"
For the Open House, the girls arranged a poster board on the piano, with the ashes on top of the piano. They used some of the pictures I took with me. They also put a picture of Pat on top, the one Jessica used on "Dad Post 2." (I think that was the subject line on the email.)
Pat died January 27, 2010. Annie graduated May 27 from nurses' training. Jessica and Katie took the ashes to the ceremony, and Linda held them for awhile. Annie was well represented with family and friends.
That's the news so far about the ashes. Although I'm beginning to doubt that Jessica will ever scatter the ashes on a favorite beach. We did, of course, remind them to watch which way the wind is blowing if they do scatter the ashes.
We are all in agreement that Annie's job with a private case management firm is an excellent spot for her. She will be working with patients with dementia. She also passed the board certification test and simply went on line recently to find out that she had passed. She said it's simply pass/fail. She also said the questions can be tricky.
With posting on this blog, I have completed all the tasks I wrote out for myself for today. Katie says she only posts on her blog when she knows what she wants to write about. I suggested it doesn't have to be profound. Only to find myself waiting until I know what I want to write about. Reviewing earlier posts helps.
2 comments:
Pat -- Nick De Bonis, East '66. And writing a book (my 4th) with the working title The Bridge Between (TBB) about graduating from one of the four Waterloo high schools during the '60s. In doing some additional hunting for people to interview, I delightfully ran across your blog. Thought I'd say "hi." If you're on Facebook (I haven't checked yet), there's more information about TBB on THE WATERLOO PROJECT PAGE. And additional background on Kickstarter at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/drnick48/the-bridge-between/posts/1501578. I'm in Iowa week after next to hopefully complete the final round of live interviews with phone interviews with graduates scattered around the globe the week after. If you're in Iowa, let me know. I'd love to catch up. It's only been what -- let's see, I'm 26, so eight years since graduation??? Age is just a number. Hope you're well. ;_{) nick drnickdebonis@gmail.com
Joy --just realized this said "Pat???" Must have been an early morning post. And I learned better proofing skills from you than that. Mea culpa. :-{) nick de bonis
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