You are awesome. I have been so bolstered by your good wishes these last couple of days, and I'd like to give a special shout out to the lurkers who felt now was the time to step up, especially to the one who said, "I know you're on dial-up so I'll keep this short." That made me laugh.
Things here at the parental homestead are a little surreal. It helps that there are lots of mysterious spots (dirt? blood? gravy?) on the walls in every room in the house, and I can just walk around, zombie-style, with a little sponge scrubbing them off. Cleaning out the refrigerator took a few hours. There was a half-hour on the phone with Qwest arranging for DSL, which I'm sure has my father hopping up and down in his urn.*
*I apologize in advance to any crematorium workers who were traumatized by this event.
My oldest brother finally slept last night, after I poured a bottle of wine into him. I'm not one for crisis drinking but in his case it was definitely called for, he'd been up for 36 hours straight and if the wine hadn't worked I had a plan for some surgical tubing, duct tape, a funnel, and a dusty bottle of rum.
I know this window of coherence that I'm currently enjoying will close soon and I will go back to staring, scrubbing, and occasionally asking my mom if she needs anything, though it'd better not be any more complicated than ice water.
I had something else I wanted to tell you but window closing, blinds coming down. Over and out.