Hey everyone. Thanks for the sympathy and thoughts. Sorry I didn’t get back to anyone, it’s been a pretty intense month.

To be brutally honest, my mom was supposed to die first. She’s always been the sick one, both physically and mentally, and it’s what she always wanted. Financially, practically, emotionally, everything would have been simpler and smoother if mom had gone first. But life seldom goes the way we want it, so the sadness of Dad’s sudden death came with a hefty side order of financial trouble and uncomfortable questions about Mom’s delicate mental health.

All of that, along with two road trips to Tucson (about 12 hours drive time each way from our town) in the last month, has taken all my time and energy. But things are reaching a stable place at last. At least, as stable as things with my mom have ever been. And I’m finally feeling up to chatting with friends, blogging, having the occasional bit of fun. It feels good.

So, obviously everything has been sad and horrible, but my dad’s funeral was about as lovely as these things get. It was as close to what Dad would have wanted as we could do on short notice–simple, in line with his religion, and fairly ecologically friendly. He’s buried in Tucson’s Binghampton Cemetery, a small and informal desert cemetery where everyone decorates the graves with personal touches–benches, statuary, all sorts of rock and glass and the occasional cactus. Plus, it turns out the first person buried in the cemetery was John Harris, an ancestor of my mother’s. Dad would have been tickled by the natural setting and the personal connection to history.

I didn’t bring the kids to the actual funeral, but I brought them on the second trip, and they added glass beads and some personal offerings to help decorate the plot. It was a nice moment of closure.