He was not a spiritual man, my father. In fact, he was cynical about organized religion and rituals commemorating anyone or anything. So it was no surprise that he emphatically stated he wanted neither a funeral nor a memorial service at the time of his death. The only two things he requested were to be cremated and to have an obituary placed in the New York Times. After my mother, sister and I honored his two wishes, we cleaned out the room he had lived in for the previous seven years of his life, throwing out medications, a couple of portable urinals, egg-crate foam pads and bed wedges.
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I dream about selling my home and then regretting the sale, feeling panicked, helpless, as though I am drowning or suffocating. I am on edge, frantic when I awaken, as if I have lost the most important thing in my life. I want a second chance: What was I thinking? How could this be? I beg, I implore: “I want to do this over again. I want to be forgiven, to be exonerated.
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