My Dying Wish

"He would make a lovely corpse." -Charles Dickens

Till death do us part. It's in the vows, yo. The only thing that will separate me from My Director is a dirt nap. Marriage. When you think about the whole thing, committing yourself entirely to one person for the rest of your life, it's pretty freakin' deep. I love it. Until you're six feet under. And that's pretty freakin' shallow. I don't love that.

This photo is just dripping with irony, is it not?

So shallow, in fact, that it creeps me out. Since I first experienced death with my Grandpa Sal when I was 11 years old, the thought of being buried totally gave me the heebie jeebies. The thought of dirt and bugs and just laying there rotting...gross. I can't handle it. Just mentioning it makes me nauseous. I decided at a pretty young age that I wanted to be cremated. I didn't really think about it until decades later when my dad died, and was cremated. "Oh yeah," I thought. "That reminds me. Sign me up for one of those too please."

Over My Director's dead body. Whenever the subject of our final resting place comes up, she puts me in my place.

"You're not getting cremated," she insists. "I want to be buried and I want you next to me. So you're getting buried." 

"Not if I go first," I counter. 

"You wouldn't," she shrugs. 

"No. I would respect your wishes because I love you," I admit.

Yet, she would not do the same. The sad and frustrating part of this whole morbid mess is that it's inevitable that I will die first. The man almost always does. You know why? Because we're tired and eventually we just want quiet. Some uninterrupted sleep.

"I can't believe you would do that to me. Deliberately go against my wishes," I protest. Meekly. 

"What do you care?" She says. "You'll be dead." She's cruel is what she is. 

"If you go first," she reasons, "I want a place to go and visit you. With a headstone and a bench. Maybe under a tree somewhere. So I can talk to you and tell you about my day."

It's a little worrisome that she's planned my death in pretty vivid detail, don't you think? I'm rethinking my recent purchase of an axe for chopping firewood. While that sucker might come in handy during the zombie apocalypse, maybe My Director has other plans for it first.

"If I'm in an urn, you can take me with you. Wherever you go," I tell her. "I'm so portable." 

"No." 

"We can BOTH be cremated and Peanut can spread our ashes somewhere special. Somewhere we love. Like the beach at LBI. Or Venice. Or at Syracuse." 

"It's too cold at Syracuse. I don't want to be there for eternity." 

"But it's where we met." 

(Shakes her head and wrinkles her nose in disgust.)

Now she's just being unreasonable. So I give in, with a quid pro quo.

"Fine. Bury me," I say. "But no open casket. I don't want to be preserved or put in a box. If you're going to bury me, just dig a hole and dump me in. No chemicals. That way I become one with the earth. You know, the circle of life."

"No. That's gross." 

"Right. Which is why I want to be cremated in the first place." 

"I'm putting you in a coffin." 

"Please don't. I'm claustrophobic. And it's such a waste of money. You're gonna need that money." 

"You're insured."

WTF?!

When I do die, she will have final say. She will make the decision and I will be powerless to stop her. She handles our finances. She plans our social calendar.  She even gets to control the television most of time. Now she's got her sights set on my afterlife.

Read more ...

Rest in Pink

It is with minimal sadness that we inform you of the death of Pinky, our hermit crab. She lasted a lot longer than we ever wished. Pinky arrived in our family on the 4th of July during a beach vacation last summer and proceeded to become one of its more high maintenance members.

Pinky's shell serves as a gravestone.

Upon hearing the news of Pinky's passing, Peanut immediately asked, "Can we get another one?" When we pushed her about the moderate seriousness of the situation - death - she then became sad and blamed My Director for not taking good enough care of Pinky.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Pinky was fed nightly leftovers from our dinner table, much to Luna's chagrin. In fact, she often got to exercise ON the dinner table during dinner. She even inspired her own Christmas song.

Read more ...

The Best Dad I Know

What do you say to a man who has no idea what he means to you? What do you say to a man who means the world to you?

There is a man who is reading this right now, and he has no idea it's about him... yet. He's a dad. But he's not just any dad.

He's my friend. He's my uncle. He's my godfather.

Me and "Unc" at my 29th Smurfday Party
August 2004

He has perhaps shown me how to be a dad, in good times and in bad - the worst, in fact - more than any other dad I know. Including my own dad.

Read more ...

Solving for Why

Millions saw the apple fall, but Newton asked "why."  ~Bernard Baruch


With one little word... three little letters... the conversation I had anticipated, dreaded, feared was underway. And once that little word... those three little letters.. were spoken, they hung in the air like a thick fog.

And I was speechless. I felt powerless.

So many questions

"Why?"

How many times a day does she ask that question? Dozens. But never, had she asked this.

She finally wanted to know where Popsie is. My dad.

"Where is he?," she inquired when we brought up his name for the thousandth or so time. Has never happened before. We always talk about him. His name is part of the conversation pretty much every time we mention my family. Or my wife's family for that matter. We've made a point of it. Just last week we were looking at swing sets at an outdoor store and she thought it was just a really big park (Good thing because I don't think we're getting one), and at one point she asked me, "Daddy, did Popsie used to take you here when you were a boy?"

My dad at our wedding 12/7/02

And I told her yes.

This, however, was obviously different.

My wife answered her, "He's in heaven, honey."

And then... "Why?"

I ask myself that same question almost every day. Why? Why isn't he here? Why is he missing all of this? His youngest granddaughter. Our house... and everything I've needed him to fix. Why did this happen to us, so soon after our wedding? Why did it have to happen to him? He had just bought a bag of discount Christmas decorations at Target that day for crying out loud. Does that sound like a man who was ready to die?

Maybe that's why I didn't have the answer. Thankfully my wife was poised to respond. As always. She said pretty much the only thing you could say. "Because God wanted him in heaven."

Beauty & the Beast doesn't dance around death

And that was it... until minutes later when we reached the point in her Beatuty and the Beast book that she was "reading" to us, where the beast dies. (And I was worried bout Tangled).

My wife was surprised she had made the connection so soon after the conversation about my dad. Or did she? We never said he had died. We told her he was in heaven. That God wanted him. That he's her guardian angel. "Do you know what it means when someone dies," my wife cautiously pressed her. "That's what happens when bad guys hurt you," she said.

Freakin' movies.

She wasn't interested into getting philosophical. She wanted to move on and read books. So we dropped it. Until the next "why."

I might not ever have the answer, but at least we've started the conversation.

Read more ...