The Waiting Game

This morning I got an email from the funeral home with the obit for proofreading before it was submitted.

Oh. My. Lord.

After I had straightened them out as to her parents name and the fact her dad was still very much alive, thank you, I talked to Pop about the "condominium" that Mom is in (that's Uncle's name for the columbarium inurnment at the Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell). He gave me the numbers and I called them up.

They gave me the info to contact the National Cemetery Schedules Office and I set an appointment with the funeral parlor to bring in my DD-214 and make things happen. I've decided against a burial at sea now, since the wife will be in the "condo" I'll just join her there rather than burden the kids with disinterment requests and all that.

They also let me know that she will be ready to go tomorrow, so I went to the airport and rented a bright red Mustang convertible for the trip. We had talked about getting a car like this so I thought she might like the ride, with the ulterior motive of deciding if I really wanted one of these or not.

I want one of these very badly, as it turns out.

So tomorrow I will get everything set with the Florida National Cemetery and pick Laura up for our last outing. After that the parents and sibs want to go to Norfolk/Virginia Beach to see the sights there.

For some reason my nutty younger brother wants to ride out and back on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. Seventeen and a half miles of bridge and tunnel from Norfolk to the Delmarva peninsula only to turn around and come back. Tourists, what do you do with them.

Wednesday we break up into our respective groups, my parents and sibs will head west back to Iowa and Eldest Daughter and family will head south to Jacksonville FL. Middle daughter and I will follow them down and then we will continue to Bushnell to put Mom as close to Grandma as we can.

Pop says we can take our time bringing Laura down, but she was never one to wait. It used to make her very upset whenever someone kept her from her self-appointed schedule, and since that someone was usually me, I learned not to keep her waiting.

I'll take the weekend off, the Mustang goes back a week from Wednesday, and then the weekend after everything goes back to as close to normal as we can make it without her.

It has been good to have everyone together, even if the reason wasn't good.