The Obituary.... by Diane Ogden

So my father is 86 now.  He has been a healthy man most of his life with the exception of a kidney stone.  Why his incision appeared as though they were cutting him off at the waist. Of course this was several decades ago.  Then he has a bowel obstruction which caused gangrene and he lived through that also.  Now at 86 he had open heart surgery to repair and replace a valve so he could withstand the kidney they have to remove (due to cancer) this month.  This all being said, he asked me to write his obituary.  Sshhheeesshh!  yet....I answered in the affirmative and with all the maturity I could muster saying, (Without the Tara Southern drawl) "Why of course Father, whatever you wish Father."  Then when I got out in my Buick I screamed....nnnnooooooo, I don't want to write an obituary for a living man, my father.  But I did.  You see he wants to see if I miss anything cool he has done in life.  Pretty sure I missed a couple things, but hit the high points for sure.  It is now ready for his "viewing!"  (Isn't that a pun?) Today he is upset because Mother is refusing to cook for him anymore.  He told me he cant sleep well because his belly isn't full.  They get meals on wheels at noon and mother eats the other half for dinner, where as dad makes himself a sandwich.  I recommended he buy some mashed potatoes at his favorite diner and munch on them all week BEFORE BED!  I told him when the other sibling asks him if things are going well and he says yes after I have told them NO, it makes me look bad and places me in the middle.  So...where to go from here?  He wants to go to a nursing home where they like him.  Hey, I married the first creeper that came along to get away from "home" thinking the creeper liked me.  O well let by goners be by goners they say. Anyway he died and moved on to other places where he can con other peoples or spirits. Or who knows he may have actually lived long enough to have learned something this round.

Back to Father.  I wrote a very lovely obituary.  Sounds like mortuary or contrary.  I did not say one word about the whippings or never taking me to the doctor when I couldn't breath, nope none of that stuff cause by goners are by goners by Godly!  And sometimes Father's do try to make up for their parenting mistakes as the years pass of which this Father has truly done.  Nobody is a perfect parent and some are less perfect than others but usually before their end times, they can stop working and sit down and think and remember and regret and sometimes even say I am sorry.  Mine didn't say anything, but he did other nice things.  Now look, he is lacking in food and for sure love.  He is such a jolly fellow.  Not to Mother I guess.  They are on that same merry-go-round wheel Esther and the Colonel are on.  Fighting, nastiness, sarcasms, meanness and apparently false starvation...mean nothing positive on this earth! Their just pissin' in the wind!  Wasted energy! Negative breeding ground! Of course he does need to get enough food.  Guess I will take him some mashed potatoes next time I go to the funny farm.  He is going into a kidney removal surgery with some very negative mental feelings in ten days.  After 86 years on earth working very hard .....I see that as very sad.  But The Happy News for today is:  He still has time. (for me to get those potatoes to the funny farm in time)