Since Wednesday, I have been very, very busy, taking care of what must be taken care of. Every immediate thing has been done, and now we wait for death certificates before the work begins again to settle things. It all could take a couple of months, for various reasons.
All arrangements have been made and paid for. A joint obituary for both of my parents has been written and sent to the newspapers. Their deaths have been announced on social media by me and my siblings and nieces and nephews, and all comments are being responded to. Plans are in place to take care of other needs that will arise later. As it turns out, being here, rather in my home town enabled me to work quickly with the funeral home and my Dad's attorney. I completed the last of the necessary things this morning. So, I'm taking a break, instead of a Xanax.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was the cause of my father's death, there will be no services at this time, not even at the cemetery. Since my father was a long-time Fire Chief in that town, I had to convince the current Chief that it would be inappropriate to muster the fire department and its vehicles and personnel to appear at the burial. They very much wanted to do that. I explained my father's wishes to have no services for himself or my mother, and discussed how terrible it would be if firefighters did that and someone caught the virus. I advised him that something could be done later if he wished, but not now. He got it. He didn't like it, but he agreed to wait until a later time to memorialize my father.
All of those things I was doing served as a welcome distraction, really. The quality of life my parents had by the time of their passing was minimal at best. It was their time, and everyone recognizes that. I'm still teary and sad, but not devastated. They can rest now.
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