Is there any good way to remotely
announce an unexpected death?
When our mother died, her son (my
status as a son then in flux although
I wouldn’t discover that until later)
opted for an early morning phone call,
cursory, the time, the cause, its suddenness,
and then assigned me to write and pay for the obituary,
which he finally approved eight drafts on.
He would plan the memorial service
and let me know the when and where,
but eleven years later I’m still waiting.
When our (now his) father died
it was a text message and nothing more.
And when he told the court he was
our (his) father’s only child despite my adoption
when it came to father’s estate, he
didn’t even bother to tell me of my passing.