i had an excuse

Someday, I'll fix my father's obituary. You see, like so many other people in the same situation, I had only a couple days to write it. And although he had been in ill health for many years, and the underlying fear of his eventual passing was always somewhere in my mind, I made no attempt to prepare for writing about his life when the time came.

And so, in my fresh grief, I struggled to celebrate him, the amazing person that he was, and all of his accomplishments. First, trying to include them all. Then trying to edit them to a reasonable length.* All while my head physically hurt from crying for 24 hours straight, getting 45 minutes of sleep, repeatedly questioning every decision I'd made in the previous 10 days, and realizing that two decades' worth of anticipation of death doesn't lessen the impact.

But I need to give this task more time, concentration, and effort in order to effectively right the wrongs I perpetrated in the original. And so for now, I simply say, it needs amendment. Amplification. And a thought process not pickled in sadness. I hope that day comes sometime soon.

* Some other day, when I'm not experiencing a moment of loss, I'll discuss the travesty that is being required to pay (a lot) for newspapers to run obituaries. I don't care how poorly your publishing business is going -- obituaries are a matter of public record. And everyone's life deserves to be acknowledged, whether or not their surviving family members have any money at all.