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I thought it would be a much more difficult day
My uncle took the day off today and we basically went to take care of some stuff that had to be handled mostly relating to my father's death.
First stop was at a financial place that had been handling my dad's stuff. As it turns out, we weren't just meeting with some random guy or a secretary or whoever, but instead we were meeting with the guy who had basically been working with my dad on his investment portfolio for the last 20 years. His office is on a really high floor of Liberty Place -- a CORNER OFFICE there -- with a ridiculous view, and he also had a microphone so that he could do 25-second financial updates for KYW News Radio 1060, which he did infact record while we were there! So, he was a super-patient guy and spent literally like 2 hours explaining all the stuff to me about how the inherited stuff works and what I had to do or not do, and how he had basically put together an idea for what he thought I should do with the funds going forward, since essentially it has become a retirement fund for me -- I can't touch most of it until I'm 59 years old without paying a ton of tax on it due to it being a "beneficiary IRA"? something like that. So rather than keeping some of my dad's prejudices towards certain stocks and companies we're just diversifying and letting stuff stay there, essentially. I signed a whole bunch of things and have to still do a few more, but overall we got 95% of the stuff out of the way today, and it really was so much easier to do in person.
The guy was really nice and had a bunch of stories about my dad, too. It was really not what I expected from chatting with a stock broker!
After that we went to the Comcast Building just to look at the lobby, which was supposed to be cool. Essentially they have a gigantic LCD screen in one wall and do all kinds of crazy stuff with it. They also have statues of people walking around support beams -- it looks a LOT like that annoying thing at CMU with the people walking into the sky.
We drove up to Northeast Philly and had lunch at Jack's deli, which is like... a block from where two of my friends lived when I was in high school. The place hasn't changed a damn bit in the last 15 years though. I had a huge corned beef sandwich on rye which was totally yummy.
Then, off to my grandpa's place. My uncle warned me that my grandpa has been getting... well, old. Grandpa will be 92 years old in May, but he's still capable of walking around on his own and chasing his grandkids and dancing and well, just about everything, the only thing is that supposedly lately he's been getting very easily confused about tons of things, doing things like leaving his cane (which he doesn't really need) on the bus, or leaving his cellphone various places, or forgetting to do things like doctor's appointments or whatever. Something like, the blood vessels in his brain are getting smaller and it's starting to cause senility. STARTING. At the age of 92. He's pissed off that he can't drive anymore (a development within the last month or two since he started getting light-headed randomly) but at the same time apparently makes fun of people 20 years younger than him who are stuck in wheelchairs. Essentially, they have him taking anti-depressants now because he's just depressed about the fact that he's getting old. Did I mention that he still lives on his own and walks and talks and hears and sees and eats with his own teeth and does stuff at the community center and he's going to be 92 shortly? He's had a really full life, I'm not sure he ever actually expected to get old before he died.
Anyway, despite that he'd called my uncle this morning because he was confused about whether or not I was still in town and couldn't remember what month it was, by the time we got there he must have been in Good Grandpa mode, because we hung out for half an hour and talked to him and I noticed absolutely nothing out of the ordinary EXCEPT that when he was mentioning that he got the letter to register for this year's family reunion, he said "...it's in August, so if I'm even still alive then..." which is not the way he'd EVER talked in the past. I said, "Grandpa, you can't die until the Phillies win another World Series. My other grandpa died when they won in 1980 and my dad died when they won in 2008, see? They failed this year, so you should be good for all of 2010."
He still has an old picture of my grandma up on the wall from when she was in her early 30's. I have her forehead and eyebrows and nose. Not sure I really ever noticed that before, but it's really obvious in that particular picture. Everyone always said I looked like my mom, not my dad, but apparently I have some features from my dad's mom. Go figure.
We left Grandpa's place and drove further out to the northeast. Went to the credit union that I'd had a bank account with when I was a kid, that I'd used until I left Pittsburgh, so it had gone mostly untouched for 8 years or so. My dad had essentially controlled the account, which was by design so that if I ever needed money and was going to call my dad, I'd be asking him for my money, not his. Anyway, we closed it out. Kind of a weird feeling, but something that really needed to be done.
And the bank is around the corner from the cemetery where my dad is buried.
So, we drove around the corner and went to my dad's gravestone.
I didn't realize, but they had the unveiling in November. I guess everyone put a rock or stone on his gravestone then, and they were still there...
Here's what's weird: when I left the airport in Seattle before heading east, I stopped in at the Made in Washington store and I bought Space Noodles for my brother because he likes them, and I got a box of Chukar Cherries without anyone in particular in mind for them. Maybe I thought I'd eat them, I'm not sure. I used to buy them for my dad all the time because he loooooooooooved chocolate-covered cherries (and chocolate-covered stuff in general). Well, this morning when we were packing up to go on our run, I was thinking "Dang, I don't have anything to put on dad's grave when we get there, do I." And just then I noticed the bag with the little box of chocolate cherries in it and was like "SHIT! I BOUGHT THOSE FOR DAD WITHOUT EVEN REALIZING IT!"
So I put a box of Chukar Cherries next to his gravestone. When I put them down I said something like "These are for you, daddy... but I'm not sure when I'll be back to bring you any more..."
It took a minute or two of hanging out there looking at the gravestone and having it really sink into my head that HEY WE ARE AT A CEMETERY AND THERE IS A GRAVESTONE THERE WITH MY DAD'S NAME AND BIRTHDATE AND EVERYTHING ON IT, DAMMIT THAT MEANS HE REALLY IS DEAD and then I did start crying a bit. It sucks. I just can't get over how strange it is that my dad is dead. I know it's been a year, I'm sure it could be ten years and it'd still seem pretty weird to me.
I have no idea what will actually happen to the cherries (like, will they just sit there until the box and the cherries get absorbed into the ground, or will a groundskeeper come clean them up?) but I do think it was funny how that worked out. And I know my dad was never big on flowers and whatnot. It's still a shame I didn't get around to making him a daisy out of CAT-5 Ethernet cables, but whatever, it's the thought that counts.
Next time I'll bring lima beans. Scuppering Succotash.
Anyway, we headed back out here after that and I'm pretty much just going to chill out here with my aunt and uncle tonight.
Oh, you wanna know something awesome?
I was able to swallow Dayquil pills this morning.
But even better -- I took them at 9am or so. It's now 5pm, and I haven't taken anything at all since that stuff this morning, except eating a Hall's or two in the car. And you know what? I'm a tiny bit sniffly, but other than that, feeling pretty good! I can talk almost normally again and I'm not coughing a ton. Slight headache. It's kind of annoying, because I took this trip here and then spent the ENTIRE time being sick, which sucked ass. Not that I don't want to be healthy again, but... well, anyway, I sure hope this means I'm closer to being actually well. Just have to hope I don't catch anything on the plane ride home.
First stop was at a financial place that had been handling my dad's stuff. As it turns out, we weren't just meeting with some random guy or a secretary or whoever, but instead we were meeting with the guy who had basically been working with my dad on his investment portfolio for the last 20 years. His office is on a really high floor of Liberty Place -- a CORNER OFFICE there -- with a ridiculous view, and he also had a microphone so that he could do 25-second financial updates for KYW News Radio 1060, which he did infact record while we were there! So, he was a super-patient guy and spent literally like 2 hours explaining all the stuff to me about how the inherited stuff works and what I had to do or not do, and how he had basically put together an idea for what he thought I should do with the funds going forward, since essentially it has become a retirement fund for me -- I can't touch most of it until I'm 59 years old without paying a ton of tax on it due to it being a "beneficiary IRA"? something like that. So rather than keeping some of my dad's prejudices towards certain stocks and companies we're just diversifying and letting stuff stay there, essentially. I signed a whole bunch of things and have to still do a few more, but overall we got 95% of the stuff out of the way today, and it really was so much easier to do in person.
The guy was really nice and had a bunch of stories about my dad, too. It was really not what I expected from chatting with a stock broker!
After that we went to the Comcast Building just to look at the lobby, which was supposed to be cool. Essentially they have a gigantic LCD screen in one wall and do all kinds of crazy stuff with it. They also have statues of people walking around support beams -- it looks a LOT like that annoying thing at CMU with the people walking into the sky.
We drove up to Northeast Philly and had lunch at Jack's deli, which is like... a block from where two of my friends lived when I was in high school. The place hasn't changed a damn bit in the last 15 years though. I had a huge corned beef sandwich on rye which was totally yummy.
Then, off to my grandpa's place. My uncle warned me that my grandpa has been getting... well, old. Grandpa will be 92 years old in May, but he's still capable of walking around on his own and chasing his grandkids and dancing and well, just about everything, the only thing is that supposedly lately he's been getting very easily confused about tons of things, doing things like leaving his cane (which he doesn't really need) on the bus, or leaving his cellphone various places, or forgetting to do things like doctor's appointments or whatever. Something like, the blood vessels in his brain are getting smaller and it's starting to cause senility. STARTING. At the age of 92. He's pissed off that he can't drive anymore (a development within the last month or two since he started getting light-headed randomly) but at the same time apparently makes fun of people 20 years younger than him who are stuck in wheelchairs. Essentially, they have him taking anti-depressants now because he's just depressed about the fact that he's getting old. Did I mention that he still lives on his own and walks and talks and hears and sees and eats with his own teeth and does stuff at the community center and he's going to be 92 shortly? He's had a really full life, I'm not sure he ever actually expected to get old before he died.
Anyway, despite that he'd called my uncle this morning because he was confused about whether or not I was still in town and couldn't remember what month it was, by the time we got there he must have been in Good Grandpa mode, because we hung out for half an hour and talked to him and I noticed absolutely nothing out of the ordinary EXCEPT that when he was mentioning that he got the letter to register for this year's family reunion, he said "...it's in August, so if I'm even still alive then..." which is not the way he'd EVER talked in the past. I said, "Grandpa, you can't die until the Phillies win another World Series. My other grandpa died when they won in 1980 and my dad died when they won in 2008, see? They failed this year, so you should be good for all of 2010."
He still has an old picture of my grandma up on the wall from when she was in her early 30's. I have her forehead and eyebrows and nose. Not sure I really ever noticed that before, but it's really obvious in that particular picture. Everyone always said I looked like my mom, not my dad, but apparently I have some features from my dad's mom. Go figure.
We left Grandpa's place and drove further out to the northeast. Went to the credit union that I'd had a bank account with when I was a kid, that I'd used until I left Pittsburgh, so it had gone mostly untouched for 8 years or so. My dad had essentially controlled the account, which was by design so that if I ever needed money and was going to call my dad, I'd be asking him for my money, not his. Anyway, we closed it out. Kind of a weird feeling, but something that really needed to be done.
And the bank is around the corner from the cemetery where my dad is buried.
So, we drove around the corner and went to my dad's gravestone.
I didn't realize, but they had the unveiling in November. I guess everyone put a rock or stone on his gravestone then, and they were still there...
Here's what's weird: when I left the airport in Seattle before heading east, I stopped in at the Made in Washington store and I bought Space Noodles for my brother because he likes them, and I got a box of Chukar Cherries without anyone in particular in mind for them. Maybe I thought I'd eat them, I'm not sure. I used to buy them for my dad all the time because he loooooooooooved chocolate-covered cherries (and chocolate-covered stuff in general). Well, this morning when we were packing up to go on our run, I was thinking "Dang, I don't have anything to put on dad's grave when we get there, do I." And just then I noticed the bag with the little box of chocolate cherries in it and was like "SHIT! I BOUGHT THOSE FOR DAD WITHOUT EVEN REALIZING IT!"
So I put a box of Chukar Cherries next to his gravestone. When I put them down I said something like "These are for you, daddy... but I'm not sure when I'll be back to bring you any more..."
It took a minute or two of hanging out there looking at the gravestone and having it really sink into my head that HEY WE ARE AT A CEMETERY AND THERE IS A GRAVESTONE THERE WITH MY DAD'S NAME AND BIRTHDATE AND EVERYTHING ON IT, DAMMIT THAT MEANS HE REALLY IS DEAD and then I did start crying a bit. It sucks. I just can't get over how strange it is that my dad is dead. I know it's been a year, I'm sure it could be ten years and it'd still seem pretty weird to me.
I have no idea what will actually happen to the cherries (like, will they just sit there until the box and the cherries get absorbed into the ground, or will a groundskeeper come clean them up?) but I do think it was funny how that worked out. And I know my dad was never big on flowers and whatnot. It's still a shame I didn't get around to making him a daisy out of CAT-5 Ethernet cables, but whatever, it's the thought that counts.
Next time I'll bring lima beans. Scuppering Succotash.
Anyway, we headed back out here after that and I'm pretty much just going to chill out here with my aunt and uncle tonight.
Oh, you wanna know something awesome?
I was able to swallow Dayquil pills this morning.
But even better -- I took them at 9am or so. It's now 5pm, and I haven't taken anything at all since that stuff this morning, except eating a Hall's or two in the car. And you know what? I'm a tiny bit sniffly, but other than that, feeling pretty good! I can talk almost normally again and I'm not coughing a ton. Slight headache. It's kind of annoying, because I took this trip here and then spent the ENTIRE time being sick, which sucked ass. Not that I don't want to be healthy again, but... well, anyway, I sure hope this means I'm closer to being actually well. Just have to hope I don't catch anything on the plane ride home.
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