First Cup of Coffee - March 18, 2024

Saying goodbye to Stepdad Dave, my third father, and musings on life and death and choosing happiness. (An explanation of where I've been all this time.)

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Transcript

00:02.60
jeffekennedy
Good morning, everyone! This is Jeffe Kennedy author of epic fantasy romance I'm here with my first cup of coffee. Ah so good today is Monday um March eighteenth and I know that it has been sometime since we talked longer than I predicted those of you who are regular listeners know that I had said that I was going to go visit my mom for her birthday and that I would miss that Friday podcast and the Monday podcast. And then I ended up missing the Friday podcast too. So today's episode is about life upheavals and what happened so I was supposed to fly home on Monday afternoon. But on Sunday my stepdad of. 18 years step tad Dave um well the short of it is is that he passed away. Um and it was both a surprise and not a surprise he was almost 87 and he had had um. COPD for many many years and had been struggling with congestive heart failure. Yes, he was a smoker for a very long time he had quit. Um I think quit in his fifty s but his lungs had never quite recovered and.

01:34.92
jeffekennedy
He had um he had been kind of going downhill. But so incrementally that we weren't thinking always going to go any day now but we knew that it would be coming um my my mother was the only one who really didn't. Know that or predict that because now my mother has been officially widowed 3 times he was my my third father second stepfather and she was really determined to be. Not widowed a third time she wanted to predecease him but the the odds were not in her favor with his health. Um, so so yeah, it was a thing. Um, it happened on Sunday it was very quick. Her birthday was on saturday. And we had a really fun day the day before that I took Dave shopping for her birthday presence. So I'm really glad that I got to have that time with him. Um, he couldn't drive anymore. We wouldn't let him drive and you know he just he just couldn't. And he would he had um aphasia and alzheimer's and so it was very difficult for him to communicate so before we left the house. He took me and showed me the old skillets that were burnt and messed up and you know showed me that and I knew by that that he meant that.

03:07.60
jeffekennedy
That way he would not have to describe to me what he wanted to buy for her and otherwise he just directed me - up here, turn, turn - and and that was great and we had she had a great birthday. A lot of her friends called the 3 of us went out to dinner. That night and we had a really fun dinner up at the hotel bar. 1 of their favorite places and he had a beer with dinner which he didn't always a lot of times he would do the non-alcoholic. But this time he had ah a real beer and they shared a. Ah, chocolate tort for dessert I had creme brulet but nobody wanted my cremble ah greme bruullet so you know more for me and the next morning he was good. He asked me to help him fix a timer for their outside lights and we talked about that he was. He was concerned that he wasn't thinking things through as well as he had always done. He was very smart retired as a full kernel from the air force and had one of the earliest degrees in computer science. He and I always got along very well because me being Leo Virgo Cusp and he was full vargo. You know we we both like to plan schedules and organize things so he had showed me that timer that he couldn't get it to work and I told him that it wasn't his fault that the thing had just tanked.

04:38.49
jeffekennedy
And I knew he was kind of relieved because he hated to think that it was because he couldn't figure out something as simple as a lighttimer and I said well oh oh get a new one while I'm out. He said that would be great and then my mom and I went in went out to run a few errands. And he um you know it's a thing right? where people talk about you know, like what are your last words to somebody with you know all of that kind of thing and I've never been much of one. In fact I will go so far as to say that I don't like it when people say things like you know. Hug your loved ones you know always make sure that you've told them that you love them and all of that and I realize why people say that when there's a sudden death because it's it's born of regret right? and you know it's like well what? what was the last thing I said to them. But the thing is as we pass in and out of each other's lives especially family that we've known for a very long time. You know you don't even know what you've said I know that he was sitting at the kitchen counter and he was eating my mom's leftover pork chops from the night before and he was very happy about it and I was. Mildly jealous because if I had known that my mom was not going to eat her pork chops I would have eaten them in retrospect I'm glad he got to have them but now letting the cat in the window here. There's a brief window of time in which he can come in and out the window.

06:10.95
jeffekennedy
Because I don't have the screens on yet hi Jackckie boy. So ah big. You know I mean it was a mild thing right? You know it's just like well damning up would eat in those pork chops because I had had meal regret usually I'm a good meal orderer and I had not been happy with my meal. They had they even took half off of it I because I only ate half of it. They offered to bring me something else and by then I was like and no I'll just eat my crown relay. Um, and so when we came back, you know I don't know what I said to him I said something like. Eating those pot pork chops. Ah and he was all happy and then we went to run our errands and we were gone maybe an hour and we came back and he was in the garage and I think maybe there was already something going on. Um. Because we opened the garage door and he was in there and and his eyes looked funny and his um face looked funny and I think maybe he was already low oxygen he had portable oxygen um and he fell down and we ran to help him and. Start putting him. You know, got his oxygen for him and all of that and he was holding my hand and we called 9 1 1 and I will tell you all that the the movie cliche of 9 1 1 telling you how to do chest compressions. Um.

07:44.71
jeffekennedy
Well you put them on Speakerphone is a real thing not on my Bingo card. Um.

07:55.11
jeffekennedy
And then the paramedics arrived but I think I think he was gone while I was doing chest compressions possibly even before I started because the dispatch was telling I'd said that he was gasping for breath and the dispatch asked me to. Say how often and he it was a really long last lapse between the previous guest breath. So. So for me that was my first time to see someone die also not on my bingo card. Um. His daughter. My stepsister was 20 minutes away she got there but he was already gone. Um, and I told her on the phone when I called her that I thought he was already gone but she said that she was glad that I was with him and. I mean the whole thing was probably less than 10 minutes I was trying to figure out how long between us opening the garage door and seeing him in there and the emts arriving which is when I start calling people so I have like those call times. Was less than 10 minutes so ah it's something we talked about a lot that it's the the end all of us would ask for to be that quick but it sucks for the people left behind. so so I ended up staying.

09:28.98
jeffekennedy
The rest of the week we put together the service really fast everything since I was there I didn't want to I couldn't leave my mom ah home alone and I also didn't want to stay for a while longer than go home then come back for a service.

09:46.41
jeffekennedy
So we met with the funeral home the next day and we put together. He was wanted to be cremated anyway. So we put together a a service on Wednesday because they were booked later in the week everybody kind of laughs at that. But it was a. Funeral home in Tucson and an older community and they were yeah booked up Thursday through the weekend but they had an opening on Wednesday and we ah that morning while we were meeting with the funeral home director who by the way was great. They they were just wonderful. They took great care of us and we um, we decided to see if the hotel where we'd had my mom's birthday dinner could put together a reception and everybody told me it couldn't happen that fast. And it did happen that fast they were able to do a really lovely reception out on the lawn. So it was beautiful afternoon the weather cooperated so we were out there with the palm trees and. Open bar. My mom was afraid that no one would come and I was like oh he he was much beloved in their neighborhood and I was like that plus open bar people will be there and they were and it was um, it was really good celebration of life and.

11:14.79
jeffekennedy
By a friend Miga Moy the fabulous Megan Moy who is starting her own business called moystudio.com I'll put a link to it in the show notes she ah stepped up to help and she proof read and fact checked. The obituary for me really fast. So I could get it in and she put together the program for us. Ah, she was even was going to help me with um because David had stayed home. She was she'd lined up. Ah, dog and cat center for us and was going to help David get on the airplane and then David decided it would be better just for him to stay home that it would be less stressful for him with the parkinson's and having to travel alone on that kind of thing. So um.

12:13.77
jeffekennedy
Yeah, so that was that was a thing and I don't know that I have any profound reflections on it except that. Um you know it's a funny thing because my stepsister believes. That um, that Dave kind of planned it that way that he not that you know not that he engineered anything but that he knew that he wanted to get through my mom's birthday that he wanted to be there for her for that.

12:51.73
jeffekennedy
And that it was absolutely the best thing that I happened to be right there and that I could be there for my mom and that I could be there to to put things together. So um, so. Now I know how to do chest compressions. Ah yeah, so that's where I've been all week and I considered doing a ah podcast on Friday and I was just still too emotional that I mean. This is being less emotional now. So you know life life happens. Um, and because this is a podcast about being a career author and how do you write and deal with life at the same time. Um. I I feel like I should talk about the fact that I've been have been working on first order of the fay realms I had been going to Starbucks in the morning and working on it all the way through Sunday morning. Ah, and then I did not get. Anything done on it on Monday and Tuesday I kind of considered working on it. So I'm trying to go to the spreadsheet there we go um is anyone knows that Microsoft 3 65 since the last windows update. It's so slow. Ah, driving me here. Crazy life goes on.

14:21.54
jeffekennedy
So Monday and Tuesday was a whole lot of getting ready for the the service and that's another benefit to doing the service really fast is we had a lot to do those first couple days and we did need to do things that Sunday evening. Everybody after everyone had gone and and they were kind of leaving us alone so it was just my mom and me and we were looking at messages from people and all of that kind of thing and if I leave my mom um and drinking having drinks and my mom said well this is boring. Let's go watch a show so we went and. She's been watching blue bloods so we went and watched that and yeah, so anyway, um so I had them working I did finish the revision I was able to work again on. Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday mornings revision is done I have about 2500 words to go so I might be done today possibly tomorrow and then we'll send off to agent Sarah so and this is clearly the book that will be dedicated to Dave.

15:36.30
jeffekennedy
Which is funny because I um I had already thought I was going to dedicate it to someone else, but there will be there will be other times I do keep a list of dedications a spreadsheet of course because. Have enough books now that I forget who I dedicate each one to I remember observing with Anne Rice how she always dedicated her books to Stan her husband even after he had even if after he had died and I always I can kind of see. At the time when I was younger and just a reader I thought how unimaginative of her and now I kind of see the the point. It's much easier if you dedicate to the same person over and over again. So um, yeah, life goes on. My mom is figuring out what she's going to do now people ask me and I say she's trying to figure that out. You know she wants to stay in that house as long as she can we already knew that so now she's looking at living alone and she. Said that 1 thing was for certain is that she was never going to date or marry again and I said that's absolutely her call but I did want to mention she said that after my other stepdad died my first stepdad she said that. so um so yeah life

17:08.20
jeffekennedy
It was interesting because some friends were in town. They they snowbered they rent a house in the same neighborhood as my mom and Dave and they have been friends with my mom since before I was born they were. Because my dad was also on the air force as many of you know and they lived in on the same air force base nearby before I was born and so Tom and Susan I called them. What even while the paramedics were there so that. Susan could be there to support my mom and you know it's interesting because their their marriage has lasted through 3 of my mom's through no fault of my mom's but it's just funny how these things work and she's had 3 really good marriages and. You know, found love over and over again. So you know that's that's a big thing right? that resilience of that. Yeah, you keep on living and so I'm not going to tell you to. Go out and embrace your left ones I think probably the last words of mine that that Dave heard were either about the pork tops depending on where he was mentally when we got home or I was asking him if he was able to breathe. Ah, but.

18:40.69
jeffekennedy
But I know he would want my mom to to go on right? have enjoy enjoy her life. So that's what I would say if I'm going to throw something up on social media some sort of hot take on all of this which I'm not going to do. Which is go out and find happiness. Ah, so much weeping not nearly as much as I was so um, on that note I'm going to sign off I'm going to finish this book finally and I will talk to you all on Friday you all take care bye bye.