[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

Greetings, Pals of Tomorrow!

Last week was the quickest impossibly long week I've ever had. I woke up yesterday morning feeling like I had just received the news but I also felt like I’d lived a year in seven days. Right now I'm mostly exhausted and relieved to be back at work. My melancholy isn't overwhelming; it's a thread that loops in and out of the fabric of my day. Mostly I am being practical and accepting: Death is the period at the end of a life sentence.

But I experience after shocks and will continue to do so for a while, I imagine. His death was unexpected and sudden and I still have moments of disbelief. Not denial, just…how? How is it he won’t be sending me an IM about getting together for breakfast? How is it that he isn’t sitting at his computer when I walk into their house? How is it that I won’t ever again see alive, up close and personal, that happy, beautiful, masculine face I’ve loved my whole life? I long for those hands, those large and gnarly arthritic hands that could enclose and disappear my own. My brother said they should have donated our father’s hands to science and, agreeing, I think they should have been bronzed and displayed in the Philadelphia Mutter Museum.

Thank goodness for gallows humor. It’s really gotten us through this week and pushes us into the next one, and probably the next one, and so on. We can have a laugh, even now. Phew!

As we sift through his personal effects I am sometimes pierced through the heart by a surprise find:a short story he wrote, a photograph, or a letter he kept that I wrote to him fifteen years ago, etc. I don’t constantly feel his absence yet but when I contemplate it, when it crumples me, I repeat sentences in my head, the usual Wants and Can’t Haves that haunt our mental cemeteries when someone we love has departed.

There are thanks too personal for a message board, some even too personal for emails, cards, and telephone calls. But I do want to post a general and public thanks to our LoT pals who have written here, stopped by, sent cards and letters, phoned, and provided assistance. Everything (and I mean everything) has been a tremendous help. I never really knew what to say or how to behave when someone else went through this. I was worried a call would be an imposition, a letter a sad reminder. I figured hands were too full and anything I could offer would just seem like another ball to juggle. Sometimes I got it right must mostly I think I got it wrong.

Every thought has counted, but I would be remiss without a few special shout outs:

- Death is a huge ****ing inconvenience and I want to thank everyone who altered their plans so they could be with us on Saturday, especially those who traveled from afar (Katie Sue, hug your neck!). In large part because of you, I’ve never felt less lonely in all my life.
- Thank you Heidi and Tom, who set aside much of their vacation prep time to speedily put together a wonderful and lengthy memorial video that combined some of my father’s TV performances with photo/music montages. It was looped all day (so your presence was felt), widely complimented, and we’ve had many requests for copies.
- Thank you to Kevin and Susan, who made it possible to blast my father’s eclectic iPod tunes all day long, and who also made it possible for us to speech and speech loudly.
- Thank you, Lisa, for the symbolic, personal, and beautiful necklace. (You know how much I adore mourning jewelry!)
- Thank you to everyone who brought food and drink.

I suppose this falls under “too personal for a message board”, but I’d be an absolute heel if I didn’t mention Erik. His words here are evidence of the love he had for my father, for my family, and for me, but his actions are Love itself. I am cherished. With regards to me, nothing could make my father happier. So I must also thank those who have given their support to my mister. He’s been constantly vigilant and I know it helps to have our friends be there for him as much as for me. Erik, I love you beyond measure by choice as well as by happy accident. Every day my heart chooses you and will continue to do so forever and ever.