4:30am (at my dad’s home)            Wake up, throw my unruly hair under the control of a baseball cap, and drive my sister to the airport in my pajamas.

5:00am            Climb back into my bed on the living room couch. This was my bed when I was able to be here in the last month, spending night duty with my dad to give my sister  a break. Now that he’s gone, I can’t imagine sleeping anywhere else. I look over to where the hospice bed used to be, to where my dad used to be, and I think…

5:20am             Pretend I’m going to fall asleep again.

5:40am             Keep pretending I’m going to fall asleep again.

7:00am             Am amazed I did fall asleep! Still tired, though. Decide to lounge on couch for a bit more.

7:33am             Get up, get dressed in workout clothes, clean the bathroom, and throw the sheets in the washer.

8:06am             Go for one last run on my dad’s favorite trails.

9:10am              Empty the dishwasher, clean up the kitchen, throw out the trash, clean up my dad’s office, his bedroom, and the living room, all to get ready to list his house on the market tomorrow.

10:25am            Answer and compose emails while eating a healthy breakfast of yogurt and fruit.

10:45am             Follow healthy breakfast with my dad’s last bit of caramel popcorn because it reminds me of him. (Or because I’m a stress eater.)

11:05am            Regret eating caramel popcorn for breakfast.

11:10am            Shower, get dressed, pack.

11:35am            Cancel life insurance policy while folding towels and sheets. (And by “cancel”, I mean begin the long series of steps my sister and I will have to go through before the company will even start thinking about canceling.)

11:50am            Cancel retirement policy while doing my breakfast dishes by hand.

12:07pm            Cancel health insurance while dusting the living room furniture.

12:18pm            Discover you can become quite numb to saying the words “I need to report a death.”

12:20pm            Cancel vision insurance while slumped over the kitchen table with a crick in my neck from holding the cell phone to my ear so I could multi-task.

12:30pm            Check in with my cousin to coordinate care of the lawn and a run to the dump. Discover that my cousin is rock solid.

12:45pm            Run out to Panera’s for a healthy salad to offset my caramel popcorn binge.

1:20pm             Eat a handful of frosted animal cookies to offset my healthy lunch.

1:30pm             Fold final load of laundry, finish packing, finish last minute tidying up.

2:30pm            Leave to pick up my dad’s ashes and death certificates.

3:00pm            Pick up ashes and carry them to the car with great composure.

3:03pm            Cry.

3:07pm            Get a hold of myself: there’s to time to cry if I’m going to make my flight.

3:24pm            Drop off one death certificate at the lawyer’s office.

3:35-5:09pm     Work with the bank to try to get my dad’s account transferred to my sister and I so we can take over paying his bills. Still a work in progress.

5:15pm            Back at my dad’s house. Pull my insane amount of luggage, including my grandfather’s guitar packed in a case with no handle, into the foyer to await shuttle to airport.

5:24pm            Eat 2 leftover bananas for dinner just so I don’t have to throw them away.

5:30pm            Touch base with my aunt about mail and other matters. Will miss her.

5:45pm            Shuttle arrives.

6:10pm            Exceptionally nice driver takes pity on me and helps carry my luggage to the ticket counter. Thank him profusely.

6:30pm            My personal belongings go through security.

SECURITY GUARD: Is this your bag?

ME: Yes.

SECURITY GUARD: I’m going to have to run this through again.

ME: (stricken) Those are my dad’s ashes.

SECURITY GUARD: (pause) Yes, ma’am.

In the split second I bend over to put on my shoes, the nice security guard tries to return my dad’s ashes to someone else. Chase him and the ashes down in an unexpected role reversal.

6:45pm             Slump over in a chair at the gate with a mind so fried I can only focus on reading an US Weekly.

7:45-9:45pm            On plane in a middle seat with an extremely noisy small child  behind me making raspberries and singing loudly, and with an even louder mom telling him to be quiet. Insert headphones as soon as humanly possible. Severe turbulence and bumpy landing do nothing to relax me.

10:15pm            Locate my hired driver in massive airport traffic jam.

11:00pm            Arrive home. Throw piece of toast and handful of chocolate chip cookies in my mouth.

11:10pm            Peek in on my 3 peacefully sleeping children: aaahhh, home sweet home!

11:15pm            Place my dad’s ashes on my bedroom table, slide into bed, and I think…