My dad died last week. He’d been sort of sick for a few months, but only really sick the week before, so it was pretty unexpected. He was 71: his birthday was the day before he died. Father’s day was three days later. He’d had a heart condition and heart problems all his life. He had his first heart attack when he was in his twenties, so I guess that forty-some years or so we got after that was bonus. But it wasn’t his heart that killed him. It was blood cancer and the ensuing anemia and pulmonary distress. But his life is way more interesting than his death. He was a jack of all trades. It seemed he could do anything. He could fix cars, and fix things around the house, he could paint and make picture frames and carve wood. If he wanted something or wanted to do something, he figured out how. He had to drop out of college when he ran out of money, but he made sure I made it through (and then some). Academically, he was my biggest taskmaster and cheerleader. He worked as a private investigator on the side, so he had cool surveillance equipment. He used it to help me cut my first record. And we had the most popular slumber parties around, because when we had a séance, we always got a real ghost. It made it hard, however, for me to sneak out to meet a boy or sneak in after curfew.

My folks welcomed our friends and the neighbor kids and any kid who needed some love. All they wanted from life was to be parents and they were great parents, to us, and to our friends and to my sister’s kids, and to their friends.

He could sell anything, but that also made him a very savvy purchaser. He knew all the sales tricks and demanded the actual best price for anything. And he usually got it.

He was personality plus. He had a huge collections of jokes and would come up with a joke (or two or three) appropriate for any situation. When things seemed too serious at his funeral, I knew the perfect joke from his repertoire, appropriate for the situation: There was a man, a dying man. He was weak, on his death bed, when with nearly his last breath he smelled something wonderful: his wife’s famous chocolate chip cookies. His favorite! He got out of bed with his last bit of energy and crawled to the kitchen, ready for a bite of delicious warm cookie. He gathered all his energy and reached for a cookie, when his wife slapped his hand and said, “They’re for the funeral.”

Bodies

I just went to see the Bodies exhibit downtown and i thought it was fascinating and interesting. i bought the audio tour as well and listened to the adult and children's commentary (i always want to get my money's worth). there are several whole bodies and lots of parts all dissected in someway to show muscles, tendons, internal organs, veins etc. i especially liked the circulatory system. they have a special procedure where they fill the veins with a colored polymer then chemically dissolve the rest of the body around it so all you see is where the blood was. it was fascinating and very pretty. the other sliced up stuff was interesting but not always pretty. but it is intriguing to see how we're all put together and what all it takes to get and stay alive. i suppose it's not for the more squeamish, but it's pretty cool stuff. and it's all very scientific. the parts are labeled. the placards and the audio commentary talk about the anatomy and the physiological connections. it's interesting to see how it all fits, and how it all fits together.

hospital

I was in the hospital recently for a blood clot in my arm. and it was a horrific experience! i was sort of familiar with the hospital experience from when Gordi was sick last year, but this time it was for me! i was appalled at the level of incompetence and neglect. i was at a prominent teaching hospital for 2 days (1 night) with a blood clot in my right arm. every time someone came in the room, i had to keep them from doing something detrimental to my situation. every aide tried to take my blood pressure in the right arm. i kept offering them the left arm. they kept wanting to use the right arm. i reminded them there was a blood clot in the right arm. the response was usually, oh, that would be bad. thanks for telling me. my thought was, this is why i am here. you should know this. after the first time, a sign was placed over the bed saying not to draw blood or take blood pressure on the right arm. no one looked at it. every 6 hours they drew blood. every 6 hours i had to keep the lab tech from taking blood from the right arm. i know the iv was in the left arm (because there was a clot in the right arm) i know there were no more veins in the left arm from which to draw blood -- believe me, i know that. but that doesn't change the fact that the right arm had a blood clot, and so they couldn't draw blood from it. i had to keep a lab tech from drawing blood at the wrong time. i had to stop a doctor from giving me blood pressure medicine. i had to stop a nurse from giving me a wrong iv. i totally had to be my own advocat, and i knew from Gordi's experience about that too. but i worried about people who were incapacitated (and there are people like that in hospitals) and couldn't speak up when someone was trying to do something wrong. but also, lots of people expect that the people in hospitals actually know what they're doing and don't argue with them. what if i had thought, well, the nurse (or aide or tech) is the professional and knows what to do. if i'd let them do what they wanted, i'd be in worse shape right now. i have to go back for blood work like constantly now to check the blood thinners etc., and today at the clinic that works only with people on this blood thinner for clots, the lab tech tried to take blood from the right arm even after i told her there was a clot there. she said, that won't make a difference will it? i made her get the more experienced person, who agreed with me that it would be a very bad idea to draw from the arm with the clot. i knew the hospital experience would be annoying and frustrating ( and they would not let me sleep -- they were in at 11 and midnight and 1:15 and 4:30 and 5:00 and 5:30 and 6:00 and it never stopped after that.) but i had sort of thought that it wouldn't be as dangerous as it could have been. i shouldn't have had to stop EVERYONE from doing things that were directly detrimental to my condition. it worries me.

time does not heal all wounds

people all kept telling me it would get better with time, but i never really believed it. and it's coming up on a year now, and it's not any better at all. the pain is just as harsh as the day it happened. today i was coming home from the movies and drove past my old house (as i do sometimes) and thought of the time gordi came to see me and then got stuck in the snow and it took him an hour to get himself out of the parking place. and then i suddenly start sobbing and i can't breathe and tears are running down my face. for the past 11 months i've been getting up in the morning (or afternoon) and doing what i have to do like go to school but there isn't a minute i don't miss him. there isn't a minute i don't wish we were together. it hasn't gotten any easier. it hasn't gotten any better. i still cry every day. many days i still sob, i'd say 'like my heart would break,' but of course it already has. i know people feel like they have to say something, but all along i felt that saying it would get better was not only insensitive but incorrect, and so far that's still my experience. it doesn't get better. it can't get better. it isn't any better.

river of gold exhibition

the new exhibitions at Joslyn are awesome.
there's more info at www.joslyn.org
the river of gold is gold artifacts from Panamanian pre-Columbian burial sites. the gold stuff is pretty and fascinating. the details is amazing -- they did lost wax casting, and used copper alloys -- and this is all over a thousand years ago. the burial site in question had 23 people buried there -- around an obviously important man. like in Egypt, when someone important died his servants and wives were buried with him to be with him in the next life. I hope Gordi doesn't think i didn't love him enough to go with him like this chieftan's wives did, because i really would have. i wanted to. He told me to wait. i would go with him in a second. i can't wait until we can really be together again.

The other current exhibit at joslyn is Mexican folk art, which is delightful. it reminded me of shopping in the border towns. There are day of the dead figurines, tin-work toys, papier mache, masks, pottery all in bright colors and designs.

There's also an exhibit of religious iconography from New Mexico -- fasinating depictions of saints and angels and the virgin mostly painted on wood. The three shows complement each other well. i was quite impressed. I spent a very lovely afternoon at the museum.

tattoo

I got a tattoo. since gordi's been gone, i've known i wanted his name over my heart. but a tattoo is a permanent commitment. i was sure about the sentiment, but i wanted to be sure about the design too. i knew i wanted the name. i thought about a scorpion, since he was a scorpio. i drew on some stuff with a marker so i could see if i liked it. i tried it with the name facing out and i hated it. i went to an ambigram generator online to see if i could get a design so i could read the name but it would also read upside down so someone looking at it could read the name, but i couldn't find a design i liked. i tried it with the name so i could read it, and liked that best. and it's for my benefit, no one else's. it's not a show-off tattoo. then i put a heart around it so it wasn't just a name, but more of a design, and liked that ok. i had the general design drawn on me with a sharpie for about three weeks before it got it so i could see if i would want to live with the design. i didn't actually go out with the idea of getting the tattoo that day. i went to watch Melissa get her full back tattoo finished, but came home from the place with my own. the guy at hebe gb's was great and drew several different designs and we put them on as stencils first to make sure it was where i wanted and at a good angle etc. you want to be sure with a tattoo before you start with the permanent ink! it didn't hurt that much getting it. i was sort of achy afterward, and it's been pretty tender the next few days since. but i really like it.

Neil Young concert

The Neil young concert was Another great concert. Gordi and i bought tickets last summer to see Neil young -- he was supposed to have been here in November, but the show was postponed until April. by then of course, Gordi was gone. but i had the tickets to the show, so i went and took a friend. The show was great -- sort of long; with two opening acts, it started at 7 and got over around midnight. we got our money's worth. i thought Neil was awesome. he played some of his old stuff and some good new stuff. i like the new song about change. I was sad that Gordi wasn't in the seat next to me, but i felt his presence. We haven't been to a bad concert yet. Neil himself played like two and a half hours. when he was coming back for the encore, i think everyone thought he would play 'Rockin in the free world' -- he hadn't yet and that was one of his big hits. But when he came back i recognized the opening chord immediately. he was doing a Beatles cover. It was "A Day in the Life."
Years ago, before we could even have any inkling that Gordi was sick, he said he wanted "A Day in the Life" played at his funeral. I misheard and thought he said "In my Life" -- since that seems like a good funeral song, but he had heard of a musician having "A day in the life" at a funeral and thought it was cool. so when i had to arrange a funeral, i did what he wanted. The song that started Gordi's memorial service was the Beatles "A day in the life." so when i heard Neil Young playing it for his encore, I was like a sobbing mess. and i figured that Gordi had something to do with it. He was telling me that he was at the concert with me. then i thought i might be making too much out of it, Even though like no one covers that song, no one plays it live -- the Beatles never even played it live. so i went on line and checked out Neil Young's set lists for the tour -- and he hadn't played it at all on the whole tour. He's been singing "Rockin in the free world" or sometimes "all along the watchtower" for his encore. Omaha was the first time he played that song all year. (he played it the next night in Kansas City, but Omaha set the precedence). which made me believe even more that it was Gordi. Since we had so been looking forward to the show, I'm glad he was there with me. and i'm glad he enjoyed the show. It was outstanding.