LIVING IN THE PAST

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The day was the hottest day of the year, as I pulled up into the empty parking lot. The tarred parking lot exuded a temperature that must have reached 125 degrees! The fact that I was at this place didn’t bother me as much as the heat.

Entering the building, I noticed how cold it was, even after stepping out of 125 degrees, coupled with the fact that it was dark and solemn, the place lent itself to the mood I was now feeling.

Alexander Tutthill is a funeral parlor that is very familiar to me. Having gone to numerous funerals there for people I know, such as an aunt, and many of the guys that reside at the Intermediate Care Facility that is where my daughter Ellen lives.

I meet Robert for the first time and we go into a conference room where we will discuss a prepaid funeral, for my daughter. A tall man about 40, he is very business-like but polite, with his dark curly hair and fine features, he could be a movie star.

TLW (The Little Woman) and I have discussed this and feel it is the right thing to do; Ellen is not dying and not particularly sick, but we feel that we need to take care of this before we pass on and save our sons the burden of arrangements. I did this on my own, without TLW being there, but with her support.

All was going well answering Robert’s questions until he came to the question that started to upset me.

“Where was she born?”

Suddenly that day came back to life. A beautiful cherub of round pink face and a familiar look I have seen in babies before in my family. I remember seeing her for the first time by chance as I rode an elevator to the nursery at South Shore Hospital. AS I rode the elevator it stopped at one floor and what did I see but my daughter being rolled out of a room in an incubator, her name printed boldly.

I remember rushing to TLW, hoping she was feeling well and anxious to tell her how beautiful our new daughter was. Now, rather than bask in the glow of having my first child, I was planning her funeral. Forty one years had just flown by,

Having done this before, dealing with the death of a child is surreal, almost mind bending and cold. It leaves you numb for the rest of your life, it is unbelievable and unacceptable, a thing that time never heals but leaves you with reminders every which where you turn.

Selecting the casket and flowers, the church and the type of service, made me almost want to sit down in the midst of all the paper work, looking at cards with selecting a prayer, all I really wanted to do was cry, for a sweet innocent young woman who has no idea what her father did, and apologize to her, asking her forgiveness.

Leaving Robert and the funeral parlor, I stepped outside into the heated tarred parking lot and never felt it, perhaps dragging a heavy heart can leave you oblivious to the real world about you.