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Thanks for the well wishes. He had a fairly miserable last year or three due to physical ailments but like those of his era, he complained little. The biggest slide came after he broke his hip a few months ago. We went down to see him at the rehab facility and he was sitting in a wheel chair in the hallway. It was not a happy sight. Over the past two years I've played about 50 shows at various nursing homes around LA. While the place where my dad was in (for only 6 days) was one of the nicest I've seen, it is way different when the broken old person in the hall is your dad as opposed to a stranger.
He still wasn't ready to go, but about a month ago on one of our brief phone conversations (I called him every day for the past few months) I could tell that he'd had enough. Hospice had come out just before then and said he wasn't "ready" for their care. A week later he was. My main job was to provide what psychological support I could to his wife and be an advocate for aggressive pain management. He went peacefully.
Thursday I'll drive his now widow to the mortuary to help make final arrangements. She wants to have the minister that married them do the ceremony and I'm fine with that. My brother was such an ass when my mom died about how the ceremony "wasn't right" that I'm in the other camp. I've said my good byes already so whatever she wants is fine. Evidently my dad had a few favorite songs that he wanted at the ceremony. My only request to his widow is that I play one of them live. So I'll be working up a solo bass arrangement of Amazing Grace. This reminds me of when I was 20 and buried my best friend. I played "Warm and Windy" on acoustic guitar and did the eulogy. But this is a far deeper loss. The good thing is I have plenty of inspiration to help pull it off. Thanks, dad. See ya on the other side...
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