yeah, that's, uh... that's him, all right.

[thehefner]

Big thanks to spacechild, Holly, themadhatter26, Vangie, and fishymcb for coming over here and keeping this boy company.

And a special big thanks to bloo_mountain for calling me up, and offering her phone line open at all times. That really means a lot, coming from her. And so, by way of thanks, I offer you this, Bloo:



SHOE!!!

Also, big thanks to fiveseconddelay, who came over for movies. He brought THE SHOOTIST (John Wayne gets cancer and has an existential crisis) and even bought THE FOUNTAIN (Rachel Weitz gets cancer and Hugh Jackman has an existential crisis), knowing that it's one of my favorite films and the film I most wanted to see that night. But my stupid old DVD player was screwing up with it, so we couldn't watch it after all. That really upset me.

So instead we watched BUBBA HO-TEP (Elvis gets cancer and has an existential crisis... also, a mummy is involved). He'd never seen it before. A good time was had by all.



And trust me, guys... I needed the lift, especially yesterday.

You see, I went to the funeral home to sign the authorization for cremation. While there, the director informed me that, legally, the body still had to be identified. He said that Nita said that she'd be willing to do it, if I didn't want to. I had no idea this would have to be done at all, much less asked of me, and I had just a few seconds to make my decision.



A number of reasons popped in my head during those decisive few seconds.

The first was practicality. This is one more thing that needs to be done, so I might as well do it while I'm here. Get it over with, so everything can keep proceeding smoothly.

The second was a kind of prideful sense of duty, akin to the indignity I felt when Nita offered to give the eulogy instead of me (or worse: to read MY prepared eulogy if I wasn't up to it! *No* one performs my material but me!). I'm the son. I should do it. It doesn't entirely make any real logical sense now that I spell it out like this, but that's the gut instinct.

The third was the writer in me, reminding myself that--little under a year ago--I decided my life motto should be "Do It For The Story." I'd never seen a dead body before, and now here was my chance. And besides, it might add a bit of writerly closure for my eventual book.

And tied to the issue of closure is the fourth and final point. Namely, that I still didn't quite believe he was really dead. I mean, it's been four years since my grandfather died, and neither Mom, my brother Edd, nor I really ever feel like he's really gone. It's the weirdest damn thing. And me, I'm so neurotic and self-doubting anyway, still so tied to the idea that Donald Hefner is something that always has and always will be in my life, that I kept asking myself, "Did you understand the nurses right? Did you just make all this up? Are you making a big emotional scene for nothing?" So I wanted to know for sure, so I could say to myself, "There, I saw it, now I'll always know it's done."

So I said yes. I'll do it.

And there he was.

My very first instinct was to think, "Well, that's not so bad." In that, he had been looking increasingly like a corpse over the past few weeks. Scratch that, over my whole life. My father, once a fit and handsome man (imagine a combination of Hugh Hefner and Paul Newman), became more and more like an emaciated praying mantis in crusted black socks and tightie-whities that weren't exactly tight nor white anymore. The last month was really just a fast-forwarding of the man I've known my whole life. The shrinking, thinning skin that revealed those teeth, bared in a death-gasp as I read Dave Barry to him in those last couple days, that was the only really new and disconcerting part.

Which had returned, not surprisingly, on his corpse. I wished they had shut his mouth. Hell, I wished they'd closed his eyes. Mom said the hospice was supposed to have done that, but there they were, half open. And more than anything else, more than the waxy skin, more even than the unmistakable lack of any movement whatsoever, that's really what drove it home for me. The open, dry, completely still eyes. He was so dessicated, the metaphor I used for him earlier held more true than ever, and he already looked mummified.

I thought that I was able to handle it, and indeed, I still am. But man oh man, that image really is gonna be burned in my memory forever, isn't it? I would have handled it better yesterday, especially with the movie hang-out not-really-"date"-but-who-knows-where-it-might-go with the 30-something woman. But then I got stuck in DC traffic for an hour, standstill, and DC traffic under the best of circumstances is still a claustrophobic, nerve-racking experience. By the time I got home, I was a shivering, stressed-out wreck, and the memory of my father's corpse was just brought to the surface.

So thank you, my friends, for being there. I'm gonna be okay, of course. Hell, really worry about me when my mother dies. Our relationship is far less complex and personally important. That's the one that's gonna really cut.

But don't worry, folks. I'll end this particularly grim chapter on an amusing note.

Mere minutes after I got the news on Friday, I told Mom, and we held each other, crying. In came Gordon, my stepfather, who asked, in his stern, authoritarian way, "Hey, what's going on here?"

I said, "Dad died."

Seriously now, he said, "Oh?"

Mom said, "I've lost a husband."

Gordon thought about this for a second, then said, "Well, won't be the last time," and walked out.

We burst out laughing. Good ol' Gordon.

Comments

[testopolis.livejournal.com]

Hey Heffie-pie...
I love you!
and I'm sorry to hear about everything this week...

(...except the maybe-date, which seems like it could turn out pretty cool.)

We're all here for ya <3

[thehefner.livejournal.com]

Thankya, m'dear! :)