First Thoughts

… news that dad has taken a turn for the worse… it sounds like he won’t last through the weekend… H has arranged herself to get back on Sunday… not sure what my plans are other than as already established… i have no great need to be there when he passes… my sister is there now, so mom has somebody to be with her through it… it’s possible i will fly down, but only if there is some kind of service or memorial happening that requires my presence earlier than already planned… i believe my sister said he is to be cremated… if that is the case, there won’t be any urgency to whatever services may be planned… so mostly i am on track to arrive Monday, September 6…

… i am a little melancholy… i am pretty sure it’s not because i will miss my father… i don’t think i will… melancholy attends what comes to an end for a variety of reasons… all endings are deaths of a kind, so there is a general melancholy attached to that… deaths in particular carry the melancholy of knowing one day it will be you… probably there is melancholy in the feeling that i had a biological father who couldn’t find his way to anything but anger towards me, so for the last two to three decades, i didn’t really have a father…

… i look forward to time with my mother and, hopefully, a few occasions where we all gather as a family without his complicating and generally negative presence… he has been a kind of Death Star as far as i am concerned…

… the HCR meter today points slightly positive… news that congressional inquiry into the final months of 45’s administration is casting a broad net… news that the evacuation from Afghanistan continues with tens of thousands of evacuees flown out every day… news that the situation is deteriorating, turmoil ahead… news that the Harlem Hell Fighters from WW I have finally been awarded congressional medals of honor for their courageous fighting during the war…