grieving DC family seeks sleep.

I don’t recommend an 8 am appointment with the lawyer followed by a meeting with the bank bookended by detailed and sterile arrangements at the funeral home only blocks from your work. Days are much better spent eating Twix bars while wearing men’s boxers or having your eyelashes waxed. I genuinely mean both.*

The funeral home, despite the warmth of its staff and the efforts of an able interior decorator, was cold. Removed. Stilted. Like a five-star hotel with first-rate art and broken radiators. For the two hours I was forced to be there I couldn’t shake the thought that my father - or his body as people are prone to calling him these days - was somewhere in the building. Alone. Without us watching football side by side and consuming illegal numbers of Snickers bars.

I wish things hadn’t end this way, with papers to sign and the complete removal of my dad from the process. It’s an inhumane procedure, this onslaught of forms and decisions, a practice ironically designed for humans. Sign here. Date here.

This does not suit him. It’d be beautiful if a waving and healthy Dad had just faded in dramatic fashion like the victims at the end of every Cold Case episode. No forms, no awkward protocol, just his ridiculously cool self giving us a final nod and moving on into the sunset. Although I could do without the show's faux music video production. My father would undoubtedly agree.





*Although listening to Hootie and the Blowfish on 11 on repeat? Slightly more painful.