Memorial in Florida

Debbi and I are back from a trip to Florida for her father’s interment and memorial.

Her father Jerry was diagnosed with cancer back in 2013. She went back to help out him and her stepmother back then, which I vaguely mentioned at the time. Then in late 2015 we went out to visit them, expecting that it might well be the last time we saw him in person. And it was, but I don’t think anyone would expect he’d make it another nine years. While he was in assisted living for the second half of that span, it sounds like his quality of life was decent for most of it. He had a fair amount of memory loss, but seemed to remember the important things. He passed away earlier this winter.

Anyway, people have been offering condolences when I mention it, which is certainly nice, but I think both Debbi and I had come to recognize that this day was not far off, so while it was sad, it was far from a shock.

We flew Alaska Airlines on a Thursday from San Francisco to Orlando. We’d never flown Alaska before, and we bought first class tickets because for whatever reason they were not that much more expensive than the other options. So it was a pretty nice trip, even though we had to get up at 3:30 am to get up to SFO for a 7:15 am flight. (Traveling stressed me out generally, but packing up and leaving when it’s still dark out especially does. I am super-careful to do a nose count on the cats before heading out the door.)

We’ve had some dodgy times with flying in the last couple of years, but our flights this time went perfectly smoothly: On-time departures, early landings up by to 45 minutes each direction, and the meals were tasty. I even fell asleep before take-off on the flight out and woke up an hour later.

It’s a pretty long drive from Orlando to her parents’ place, so it was a long day for us. We rented a Chevrolet Malibu sedan, which was a perfectly cromulent car. Not something I’m jumping to want to buy myself, but it was easy to figure out, and had CarPlay.

Debbi reserved a house through Airbnb for us, her two sisters, and her two nieces and nephew. It was a really good experience! The host let everyone else get in a couple of hours early since they arrived well before us, and the place was spacious, clean, had a hot tub in back which others enjoyed, and a comfy couch. If anything, the only thing we’d have liked were more pillows.

(Yes, I know Airbnb is a problematic company as its co-founder is a shitty human being supporting Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s fascism. They did look at Vrbo but this place was more convenient and cheaper.)

The interment happened the next day at a VA cemetery, as Jerry had served in the Navy during Vietnam (and didn’t like to talk about it). They had a military salute (6 guns fired 3 times, if I counted correctly), and then we went back to the retirement community for a banquet gathering of family and friends. I got a meet a number of Debbi’s relatives (at least a couple of whom said “I recognize you from Facebook!”), including her one step-brother I hadn’t met – except that I actually had 20 years ago, but didn’t remember him, as it was very brief.

On Saturday we went back to hang out with everyone and take advantage of the pool, where several of us came away with sunburns of various degrees (mine was pretty mild, fortunately). In the evening I watched the season 2 finale of Severance, which I should write about sometime.

Some folks left on Saturday, and the rest of our household left early Sunday morning. Debbi and I had a little extra time to combobulate ourselves, and then we drove back to Orlando where we spent a couple of days at Walt Disney World.

We stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort, where we had a room conveniently in short walking distance to the Skyliner, a fun and handy way to get to Hollywood Studios and EPCOT, the two parks we visited. We got to eat a bunch of food (some of which would have been 400% better had it been better heated), stand in a bunch of lines, and ride a bunch of rides. The current trend in Disney rides is rotating carriages, as Rise of the Resistance, Ratatouille and Guardians of the Galaxy all feature these vehicles. Guardians was as great as advertised, but maybe not great enough to be worth a 90-minute wait. We did get to do Star Tours twice as it had a short wait, and the second time was definitely worth it as I hadn’t seen the sky whale world before. (The Wookiee world was also pretty great.)

Tuesday we just spent the morning at Disney Springs before driving back to the airport and flying home. We were certainly glad for the early landing on the flight back as it meant we were in bed by around 11 pm (or, 2 am on the east coast).

So all things considered it was a good trip. Some closure for some people, I think. And good to see some people we otherwise wouldn’t see. A bit hectic to have such a trip pop up on fairly short notice, but these things happen when you get to this point in your life.