Ashes to Ashes

I saw my Father in Law the other day.  It was interesting, because he is dead. 

I think about him all the time, John's parents have basically been our best friends for 4 years.  And then his father died.  I have always been accepting of death, especially when it's a 79 year old man.  But Tom Wilson was different.  I did not get to spend enough time with him and I was not ready for him to leave us.  He did not want to leave, he fought hard until the end.  He cheated Death for many years, he took every sucker punch God threw at him and he kept going.  

So, lest you become frightened that I am seeing ghosts again, John and his Mom, Joan, played golf the other day.  I, being a crippled gimp, drove the golf cart that Dad usually drove.  It is good to play golf, Mom loves it and so do John and I, but I cannot play and for the first time ever, I must drive the golf cart that Dad drove due to his missing leg.  I think about him the entire time, I miss him and the golf cart just makes it so much more vacant as I am not sitting next to him, cheating by sneaking a ride and having a laugh with Dad.  He was such an incredible man, and my husband is definitely his son to the tee. 

So, seeing Dad.  After golf, we took Mom home.  We sat and chatted a while, as we had to stop by Joanne's (John's sister) school on the way home and get the paperwork for her school to take the safety patrol to Wild Waves, which is by us.  Mom started talking about Dad, she is not a cryer, she just talked about Colorado, and all the nice things, and then she said that she should have not allowed the open heart surgery and brought him home instead for the surgery.  Then she asked if we wanted to see him.  John, being John, looked at Mom and I like we were alieans.  Then I put my two cents in.  "yes"  I wanted to see him.  So she went into the bedroom, and took him out of the dresser.  He has his own drawer.  and she brought the black box out.  She asked if we wanted to hold it to feel how heavy it was, and John gave the look again.  I said yes, and she passed the box to John, who passed it to me.  John handled it so delicately, and Mom pretty much flopped it around.  So, I flipped and flopped Dad's box, and stated that he felt like a box of really heavy cake mix.  He would have liked that.  Mom said maybe he was not alone in there, maybe someone else's ashes was in there with him.  He would like that too!  Tom Wilson loved to talk to people. 

At this point, John was in a panic, he thought ashes were going to fall out of the box, which had a small opening to slide out the drawer.  I told him that Dad felt like a box of cake mix because he must be in a bag.  So, we all debated opening the box and looking at Dad, and both John and Mom thought that was weird.  I, of course, said I would like to see him.  But John ended up pulling open the drawer and looking, and I did not want to intrude.  So I only saw Dad's box, and flopped him around a bit.  But I was glad I got to see his box, and feel him in a way.  I  miss him. 

I consider myself fortunate to be 43 years old and to truly feel a loss of life for the very first time.  I have known many people who died, but I have never felt like this before.  The only comparison is September 11th.  I refused to accept that the World Trade Center Towers had fallen.  It was just the top floors, they were too large, too strong to collapse.  When the smoke cleared, I fully expected to see the buildings minus the top floors.  And that never happened.  The Orkin Man can verify this because I dragged him into my house and we sat there crying for hours.  I never even knew his name. But that is what I feel with losing John's Dad.  I feel that the skyline will always be missing those grand buildings, for he was a skyline unto himself.  He was larger than life, a friend told me.  She cried about his death and she had only met him once.  But he had made himself eternal to her, as he had to so many people.  I just wish I had more time with him.