I’m stinging a bit today, in more ways than one. I’ve been having trouble with pain lasting longer than usual after my gall bladder surgery then my gout decided to reassert itself after a hiatus of several months. Worst possible time since I’m supposed to drive out of Albuquerque tomorrow to get back to Tucson then fly back to Mongolia on Sunday. Driving might be out of the question since at the moment I can barely walk. But the worst sting came by way of a phone call yesterday morning from a Long Beach police officer as he was standing over my father’s dead body.

He’d apparently been dead in his assisted living apartment for a number of days, possibly as long as twelve.

No one knew.

It seems that no one wondered where he was, or why he didn’t answer his phone. Only the smell finally drove the neighbors to call someone.

I don’t want to write about the entire ordeal and some of the life lessons that have been just screaming in my head since that phone call—at least not yet. I’m sure I’ll write about them later. Suffice it to say that my father and I had an extremely sporadic and thin relationship. Still I could not help but be numbed by the news. My father’s life is best summed up as a sad tragedy where endless game-playing and rejection of any real love ever offered him lead to a sad and lonely life and ultimately a tragic lonely death.

It appears there is no one to mourn him. I confess that most of my mourning is really pity, and reflections of a man who wasted and abused virtually every opportunity and relationship he had. If there is a reason to mourn someone I guess that would be it.