Dad

My dad died last Thursday.

He has been in and out of the hospital for 13 years, so it wasn't a total shock - but on the other hand, no one expected it to be last week.

By 10:15 on Friday morning, Wanda and I were in Regina.

By Friday night, the details were sorted out - prayers on Sunday night, funeral on Monday, burial on Tuesday (because he wanted to be buried out of town).

I couldn't begin to tell you how many people dropped off food - which was wonderful, because cooking required more energy than anyone had. Left to our own devices, there is no way we'd have cleaned/acquired vegetables, so veggie trays were especially wonderful.

My niece and her puppy are taking this especially hard. Apparently, the puppy spent the first day wandering the house and sitting in dad's favourite chair. (After I got there, the puppy spent her time following me around looking cute and sitting whenever I had food in my hand in hopes of getting a treat.)

My niece alternates between sad ("Do you have the phone number of heaven? I want to talk to Poppa.") and pragmatic ("Grandpa's dead as a doornail." "Now Grandpa's dead, so we might as well chuck that out."). She's doing well, but it's a hard thing to deal with - especially when you're six.

Things went as well as possible. If I counted correctly, 25 (of 47) of my first cousins were at the funeral. That is especially surprising considering that my dad's brother died 3 weeks earlier and many of them traveled from outside the city (and province) to be there.

I got back to Ottawa last night, completely exhausted. I slept in this morning and then took a nap this afternoon, so hopefully I'll be ready to go back to work on Monday.