On August 14th, 1995, my father passed away. I had just seen him the evening before at the nursing home and he had been in pretty bad shape. It was not the last picture of my father that I wanted to remember, but we don't get to pick and choose such things.
The next day I called the local newspaper to speak with the managing editor. Daddy had taught her while she was an intern and worked with her as she rose through the ranks at another paper. Through her, a very nice obituary was written about him and posted just two days after his death. I learned more about what my father did at work through that article than ever as I grew up.
Daddy had requested to be cremated, but, because of a snafu/misunderstanding with the pre-payment at the funeral home, no memorial service was to come. His wife gave over "custody" of the ashes to my sister and me, and the flag, customary for the spouse of a deceased serviceman, was given to my brother.
My sister and I scrambled to put together a memorial service at her home in order to give the family some degree of closure. Daddy hadn't been a religious man so a priest or minister seemed wrong, but we did ask a military chaplain to speak. My niece created a lovely display from photographs, Daddy's medals and other things that had belonged to him. My brother came into town, along with his eldest daughter and her then-husband (himself a military man, in full dress uniform - bless him!), my god-parents' three children, and some friends.
Although my father loved to hear me sing (and rarely got the chance to), I could not bring myself to sing anything that day.
When it was all over, we realized we had no idea what to do with Daddy's ashes. Somewhere I got it in my head I might take them to Ireland - a country he loved dearly yet never once visited - and scatter them there. All good intentions aside, it's now 2012 and I've yet to make it over the sea to that fair land. And Daddy's ashes, all these years, still reside on top of my sister's bedroom dresser.
Recently the ashes of a friend of a friend who was a veteran were interred at Arlington National Cemetery. It gave me a little pause and started my brain working. I had never thought about, nor even considered that before as an option.
If there was one thing my father was proud of the most in his life, it was his service to his country in the Air Force. He entered, as most young men did back then, around the time of World War II and stayed in until he had to retire as a Lieutenant Colonel. He had a number of medals and honors (although I wasn't aware of much of that as I grew up). And because most of his active duty was in military intelligence, I had no clue what he did "during the war." However, at one time he owned a piece of the Berlin Wall along with a snip of the barbed wire from it. The mind boggles!
Last week I saw the photos of my friend's friend's interment and an idea was born. Nearly twenty years after his death, with not a single piece of official paper, I've decided that my father will have the military honors he deserves.
While I've already taken a lot of first steps, I'm going to keep some track of them on this blog and will "catch up" with what's already been done over the next few days. Hopefully, this will be a record of that process and my progress towards this goal.
Labels: Memories
