Checklist

 

Cross these off the to-do list:

Sat with Mom and edited the obituary text - check

 

Emailed document to funeral director - check

 

Chose the menu items for the funeral luncheon and emailed this, plus an estimated head count, to the restaurant - check

 

Took my mom to dinner and actually SAW her eat food - check

 

It is so, so surreal to have gone through that obituary info for my dad. How on earth can we be writing about him in the past tense when we JUST TALKED TO HIM ON THURSDAY? 😢😢😢

 

Thursday night, he was telling my mom all the things he wanted to do when he came home. He was going to work hard in PT and get strong, he was going to plan a family dinner for their 60th wedding anniversary in June, he was going to do a bunch of things. And even so, on Friday morning, he was joining his parents, sister, brother-in-law, and even his childhood dog Patsy (about whom I heard countless stories while growing up... boy, did my dad ever love dogs) up there in Heaven.

 

Pray for my mom. I hurt as much seeing HER in pain as I do over losing my dad. I wish I could help with that part of this process, but that's impossible.

 

Next up: talking to the folks at the cemetery to determine which of the plots in our family's lot are still available. There should be four open spots, but we need to determine which ones those are so we can open the correct one. The last four spots are slated to be for my parents, Mark, and me, but it's a large plot and some of the spots are already in use.

Interesting fact: the plot was originally purchased in 1925 by a relative with the same name as my dad, EXCEPT that he was using the original spelling of our family's name, Gabriele. That got anglicized in later years. So in another few years, we will have had that spot in the cemetery for a century.