Bad news had gotten to us a couple days before we headed home. The house had been broken into and a certain amount of stuff taken. Obviously Tack could not let us know exactly what but things had been ransacked. It turned out that it could have been much much worse as credit cards, family jewelry and all kinds of other things had escaped theft, even though some of it clearly had been spotted. Lucy's laptops and the television were the worst thefts, and luckily also the cats stayed put, even though doors were open when Tack discovered the break in. The kids had been alarmed and surprised that this sort of thing happened, but none of their possessions had been affected. We spent the last few days of the trip worrying a bit about what we would find.
Worse news came the night after we got home. My mother called just before midnight Sunday. My father had died. She had said in a phone conversation after our return the day before that he had been in the hospital a few days, not the first time in the last years that has happened for various reasons, and that he had been dehydrated, and the doctors found an enlarged prostate and a kidney that was not doing well. He had been in increasing pain all summer long, but then at the hospital that night, everything went south quickly. This sort of phone call you dread, and anticipate, and prepare to deal with - I have been expecting this call for a good five years now as my father's health declined - but no amount of preparation is adequate. I cry that night and many times in the next weeks. My father was gone. Once a vibrant, combative, feisty old New Englander, who could argue economic policy in the same breath as bemoaning the designated hitter rule, he had slipped into the next phase. His Obituary appeared in the Hartford Courant on Sept. 29.
We are doing okay, the kids having barely known him, except as an old invalid, but the hole he leaves in my life is larger than I would have thought. I dedicate our travels to his memory, and wish he could have been alive to hear about them.
October 2005