My father passed away today, at the age of 90-and-a-half. →[More:]
I have a reputation for telling long, convoluted stories, but there's no way I can begin to explain the circumstances of his death which was caused by a combination of being hit by cars twice, two years apart, his stubborn defiance of doctors' orders because he thought he couldn't afford it, infection picked up inside the hospital, other pre-existing conditions that just got worse and maybe his realization that he could no longer maintain his independence (he was still living alone in an apartment in a non-seniors building) causing him to give up. The doctors told me he finally suffered a 'non-typical heart incident' - his heart simply slowed to a stop.

I'm in his apartment in Van Nuys, facing various unpleasant issues, a couple of which he had tried to prevent me having to deal with (but he apparently put his trust in some of the wrong people - not for the first time).

After some time estranged, we had reconnected earlier this year, and I spoke to him three times in the hospital, but didn't come down to see him until he had lost consciousness, never to awaken. Still, I feel I have achieved as much closure as the old crank would allow me.

Mixed emotions? Oh, yes. Part of me feels he is more at peace than he had been in life for a long time (my mother died 26 years ago and he never got over it). Part of me never got over his anger I grew up with (he was a real-life version of Mr. Foreman on "That 70s Show", just without the laugh track), but part of me is proud of the man who so easily quit smoking when I started to develop asthma and so easy quit drinking when he retired from a business that ran on three-martini lunches. Part of me still wonders about the things he always glossed over about his service in World War Two that I will never really know. Or the parents he was fully estranged from before I was even born. In 90 years, he lived a full life - I just don't know if it was all that much a good life. That saddens me as much as his loss, about which I actually feel more relief - as I said before, even believing as I do that death is simply the end, he is at peace.

All I ask of you bunnies is to post a lot of funny crazy stuff to help distract me, otherwise, I'm never going to get any sleep.