Ten Years ago today, I was talking to my parents on the phone from the midwest. They were in New York City experiencing one of the worst heat waves ever. They called me to talk about the British Open, which was being held in St. Andrews, Scotland that year–a town that my husband and I had lived in for two years. We talked excitedly about trying to make a trip to Scotland together sometime. We talked about the golf tournament. I don’t remember who won that year, but I remember the ending was exciting. We talked about the heat wave and how my parents had opted out of having air conditioning installed in their apartment until their new windows were put in sometime in the next year.

The next morning I got up and did my 35-40 minutes or so on the stairmaster in my tiny graduate student apartment. I got a phone call. It was from my mother. Her voice sounded heavy….dragging, hardly breathing. “Your father died this morning.” I don’t remember wha else was said exactly. He had died in the bathroom after taking a shower. His heart had stopped beating, it was later presumed. My mother found him on the floor in the bathroom. She called 911. They tried to save him, but he was dead. She spent the morning dealing with details that no one in that position should have to deal with in such a moment, and yet cruelly, abdsurdly they all have to. In the matter of hours, or even minutes, they have to make decisions–about funerals, about burials…I can barely stand thinkinig about it.

I got off the phone and made my way to the shower to tell my husband what had happened. I sat on the couch while he got dressed. I traveled outside my body and watched myself. I made arrangements to get on the first flight available.

I will write more tomorrow.