Idle Time

At about 9:20 on Thursday morning, we heard knocking and the doorbell. I woke up, got my socks on, went to the door. Mom was already there in her nightgown, looking through the peephole. She said that there were a couple of men walking away, one saying something about “scratches”; she guessed that they were repairmen trying to sell their services. (We still don’t know for sure whether this was the case or not.) I went back to bed; mom chose to stay up.

About twenty minutes later, we heard knocking and the doorbell again. I didn’t even bother with the socks this time, being more curious than that now; about when I got to the dining room, I heard a woman’s voice calling out my mom’s name from outside. Now this was very odd.

I opened the door, with mom behind me; it was our neighbor from across the street, with two men behind her. “These men want to talk to you.” Mom stepped out; I stayed inside the door (being barefoot, remember?), and noticed a sheriff’s badge clipped to the belt of one of the men. (Both of them were in plain clothes: each, a suit with no jacket.)

For awhile, we had a 1981 Audi parked in our driveway. It fell into disrepair, and we received a “notice of violation” since one cannot legally have an “inoperative” vehicle visible from a public road. We donated the car to a charity, but awhile after that, we received a letter reminding us of the violation. We paid it no mind, having already cleared the violation, but upon sight of the badge, I thought that this was another reminder about the car (I forgot that it wasn’t present anymore, so they probably wouldn’t have knocked on our door about it).

“I’m afraid we have some bad news to tell you.”

So much for that. I knew at this point that something had happened to my dad. The man speaking was not the one with the sheriff’s badge; we would find out in a few minutes that he is an Investigator in the HBPD.

“Your husband” — the officer was addressing my mom — “was killed this morning.” Text doesn’t adequately convey it; he seemed pretty shaken up about it himself. “Oh God”, responded my mom.

We were given my dad’s backpack and a paper bag containing the items on his person — money, ID, watch with its band broken (and its bezel blood-stained), among other things. We were also given a form giving a summary of the incident, and the business cards of both men. The senior of the two told us that the autopsy would be done that afternoon. A woman was with them; I think she was a grief counselor of some kind, but she didn’t say anything that I heard (although I did go back inside briefly to get my socks on).

Clipping from the OC Post (another newspaper, run by the Orange County Register).

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My dad took the bus to and from work every workday. At 5:54, he was crossing Brookhurst Boulevard to get to the bus stop, when a van hit him; the impact was fatal. The driver stopped and called police.

Dad was pronounced dead on the scene; presumably, the rest of the three-and-a-third hours between then and the time that the officers arrived at our door was spent interviewing the driver, towing vehicles, recovering personal effects, and cleaning up the scene.

Note: This is a good argument for always carrying your ID with you, if you live with anybody. Dad had his California ID card on him, so the officers knew where he lived and that he was married, making that location (i.e. our house) the logical place to look for next-of-kin.

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A little later, the same neighbor from before and one of our next-door neighbors came over to see how we were doing. He gave us his business card, and I gave him one of our phone numbers (I’ve forgotten which one); she said she’d ask a friend of hers about urns, that friend being an employee of a nearby mortuary.

He came by later (while I was taking a nap, since my sleep had been cut short) to drop off a printout of an HB Independent article (and there’s an article in the Orange County Register, too). She came by even later than that (waking me up), and gave us a tray of Honeybaked Ham (spiral-sliced ham, regular-sliced ham, and turkey, along with baked beans, potato salad, cheese potato, and creamed corn). It was an awesome dinner (and we still have plenty of it to eat), and satisfied my longtime curiosity as to exactly how good or not Honeybaked is; obviously, though, that isn’t the way I wanted to try some Honeybaked Ham.

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So, my father is dead. Once the arrangements are made, we’ll invite family down for the viewing, and then his body will be cremated.

It hasn’t quite sunk in yet. I know, objectively, that my father is dead, but it isn’t real for me yet — I don’t feel it, if that makes sense. I expect that it will hit me at the viewing.

I haven’t written any code since the incident, and may not for several days yet (if not longer). I’ve been on IRC the past couple days, after staying well away from it for a long time in order to be more productive.

That’s all I can think of right now.

Categories: Life. | Comments: 10 (feed).