Well that didn't take long...

So yesterday was my dad's memorial service. Not too bad. The thing about Mexican, or Latin services is that there are invariably family there that you swear you've never seen before. Yet somehow, they know you.

My dad's family is pretty large. (One family I met were part of a clan in which 13 kids came from the same woman!). Many of them closely resemble my dad. At the wake following the memorial service, there were countless times that I'd see a guy out of the corner of my eye and I'd think "Oh, here comes dad. It's about time!" Simultaneously, the guy would come into focus and the realization that I was at my dad's wake would hit me, and I'd just think, "Dang!"

I was only awake maybe 12 minutes yesterday morning before I found myself neck deep in a family secret and was myself sworn to secrecy. The combination of wanting to focus on the afternoon's service and the "eeww"-factor made it easy not to think about it for most of the day. So on the way home from the wake when I was finally able to tell my wife about it (1- I had spent far too many days apart from her this week, including this one. 2- There are very few secrets I keep from her. And the ones I do keep she knows about. Mostly they're things shared in confidence when people are seeking counsel.), we spent a great deal of time wondering out loud "What?!? How...When...But didn't they..Are you sure? Why?" before finally resolving it was best not to think about it. A task that proved difficult if not impossible. It was soon after that when I thought that the best thing to do was call dad, because if anybody could help put things in perspective it was him. It took a good 2 or 3 minutes before I realized why this wouldn't work out.

This is one thing I will miss most about my dad. I can kind of work most things out on my own. If I can't, I have a pretty good support system around me who can help. But when things are just so far out there that I have no frame of reference for what to do, that's when it time to call dad. He had a way of taking the most bizarre things life threw at me seem manageable. Or he would tell me I was already on the right path, and that I already knew that.

God, I'm going to miss him. Big goofball.


UPDATE: I should mention that the afore-mentioned "secret" had nothing to do with my dad, my stepmom, or anyone in my immediate family. Just a cousin acting independent (and foolishly timed) of the week's events.