I got up and quickly threw on the t-shirt and shorts that I’d been wearing before bed, shut off my alarm so it wouldn’t go off and then a police officer escorted me into the room to see my Dad, the “scene” not having been cleared by them yet. It irked me that they were treating this like a potential crime, but realized they were just following their procedures.
There really isn’t much to say about seeing a dead body, of someone you loved, who you had just talked to 12 hours before. It no longer really looked like him, in so many little, indescribable ways. I whispered, “Goodbye, Dad. I love you, and promise you I’ll be there for Mom,” and turned away and went back to the hallway, where Mom was talking with the deputy who had been dispatched from the Medical Examiner’s office, as she was telling him the funeral home we would be using. He shook my hand, before taking my place in the bedroom as a couple other men carried a gurney up the stairs. It all felt like a scene from some crime drama on TV, making it seem unreal again, despite having just seen my Dad’s body.
I hugged Mom to me, and asked “What do we do next?”, already trying on my “Help Mom” hat.
She rest her cheek on my shoulder for a moment, her nose by my neck, before saying, “Phone calls. Family, friends, his boss, mine at the hospital. But both of our phones are still in the bedroom, and the police won’t let me back in to get them yet. Can you get yours, and we can at least start with your grandparents?”
I got my phone, and pulled Mom’s parents up in my contacts list, and brought it to Mom, then watched, as she broke the news to her parents. I didn’t know how she was staying so calm. Her call to Dad’s parents was longer, and she finally broke down crying, and I took the phone from her and talked with Grandpa Dave, as Grandma Marion had also broken down crying, perhaps triggering Mom’s tears. Grandpa told me that they’d be over as soon as they could get there, about 20 minutes, and he’d call Dad’s two brothers on the way.
I took Mom back into my arms, and let her cry into my chest. My own tears weren’t coming. Even though I wasn’t feeling terribly strong, I knew strength was what my Mom needed at the moment. So, stiff upper lip and all that.
She finally pulled away from me, wiped her tears and started down the stairs and I followed her. It was weird seeing the Christmas tree in the living room, surrounded with gifts, and the thought popped in my head that many of them would have Dad’s name on them, either as giver or recipient. Merry Frickin’ Christmas To Us. I followed her to the kitchen, where she started coffee. She turned to me and said, “This is going to be a long day, and we better start getting ready for a full house. Drew, can you get a pack of muffins out of the freezer, and we’ll warm them up?”
I went out to the big freezer in our garage, and got out two packs of chocolate muffins, figuring that one wasn’t going to be enough, and brought them back to the kitchen, just as the Medical Examiner’s team came down the stairs with the gurney with Dad’s body in a bag, and the last police officer on the scene told Mom that they were done in the bedroom, offered his condolences again and they all left. I popped open the plastic around one pack of muffins and tossed them in the microwave, then ran up the stairs to get fully dressed since company was coming, then grabbed both Mom’s and Dad’s phones before heading back downstairs, so Mom and I could make more phone calls to deliver the bad news.