Okay, that's not true. I'm not regrouping. I'm wandering around picking things up, putting things down, and moving them from one place to another. I washed some clothes, ran the dishwasher, changed the sheets on the bed, and walked the dog. I went to the post office. I read my mail. I contacted my new mentee to explain my recent silence. I unpacked. I took chicken out of the freezer for supper. I started on the pillow I'm making for Mother, only to discover that my sewing machine isn't working. I watched "Shaun of the Dead," a nice zombie movie, and "Sunshine Cleaning" with Amy Adams, which was fun but my thoughts wandered, and I missed some. I don't believe the problem is with the movie. I wrote notes to the hematologist at the Cleveland Clinic Wooster who treated Daddy for 7 years and to the hospice staff who worked with my father in Medina for 25 hours.
[Let me interrupt this broadcast to say that I'm not one of those people who don't care what you know until they know that you care. I don't need love; I need good medical care. I want to know professionals are highly educated, carefully trained, fully experienced, and committed to the highest standards of care. Being articulate is also an advantage. In other words, I love them for their brains and skills, not for how they feel about me or my family. Knowing that they care? Malarkey. Dr. Lun at the Cleveland Clinic Wooster kept my father alive for 7 years after a doctor in Port Clinton gave up. His is not an effusive personality, but he allowed my parents almost ten percent more years together than they would have had otherwise. [They celebrated their 67th anniversary on February 6.]
I find death to be massively overstimulating for everyone but the star. Unfamiliar voices and ordinary conversations are unsettling me. This feeling will fade, but there's no rush. We had so many good conversations and recounted so many things with high hilarity over the last ten days that they warrant more time and space.
And now for two photos:
Daddy a few years ago. He took up painting when he was in his early seventies or thereabouts. I think this photo shows his painting of the freighter our friend Russ Brohl captained.
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