Anna Skamarakas

Okay, the good things:

The facility was very large, so there was plenty of room for folding chairs and people.  Brighid’s dances didn’t begin until 12:30, according to the stage schedule, so we didn’t have to leave the house until later.  That gave us plenty of time to get up to the Expo, which was very nice.  There seemed to be plenty of vendors, and most of them were selling different things so there wasn’t a lot of looking at repeat stuff.  The stage area seemed very large and there was plenty of room for the kids to dance.  The facility really lends itself for warm-ups and practice, as there was a lot of space - I don’t know if that was true earlier in the day, but it certainly was when we got there.  Brighid danced 4 dances, all on the same stage, all back to back.  That worked out pretty well.  There was a food counter at the far end of the facility, and a few tables outside of it.  That kept most people down that end to eat, so I didn’t see too many people walking around with drippy pizza or anything that could damage some of the beautiful dresses.  Peter Smith has the best trophies!   Brighid got a second and a third, and the trophies were tall and impressive - and that’s a nice prize to give to a kid who has worked hard to compete.

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First, let me say that I will never attend an outdoor feis in the summer again if I can help it.  I mean it.  Honestly.  Brighid was so hot and drenched in sweat, and we took the whole family out because it was going to be a great day to wander about, enjoy the Celtic entertainment, and have a grand old time, so the lot of us looked like wet dishrags after the first couple of hours.

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Not how most moms describe their brand new infants, but as a panicked mother to a child with a head who’s head circumference is a bit on the small side, it’s words like this that are coming to my mind.  If her head doesn’t catch up, what will the kids call her?   Will she be teased with names like Pin Head?   Will she be called a circus freak?   Will kids make fun of her with names like Conehead?  

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Yesterday was the day that we took my father’s ashes to the cemetary in Yeadon, PA to have him “inurned” in the columbarium that he and my stepmother purchased a few years ago.  We always joked that it looked like a mailbox, right down to your name plate on the front.  I have never been to an inurnment, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I think I half thought we would just take the urn over to the cemetary, drop it off at the office, and be on our way. 

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Have I mentioned how my life is never dull?   Have I mentioned that there are times when I WISH I had one of those June Cleaver kind of lives, where there is no yelling and screaming at your kids, no toys all over the house, no weeds in the yard, and no policemen on the doorstep?

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My father’s Memorial Mass is later this morning.  I have just finished stapling together all of the booklets for the Mass, and Brighid and I worked on a photo collage Thursday night to display at the visitation and the Memorial.  All I have left to do is print directions for the funeral director to give to the people so they can get to the luncheon.  I am finding that with the passing of a few days, I am not crying as much, but I am feeling more like this was a bad decision.  I just wish he had waited, given the dialysis another chance, maybe given us a little more time. 

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After a fitfull few hours of sleep - from about 6:30 until 9:30 - Ann phoned to tell us that we have a meeting with the funeral home at 2 today.  My dad wanted everything done on a Saturday so no one will have to take off from work to attend.  We have to find the first Saturday that there are no 11 o’clock masses scheduled at their church.  Jim offered to take Ann out to get something to eat afterwards, but her sister is putting a meal together because Ann has people visiting at her house.  I’m not sure where I fit in in all of this.  I’m not really part of Ann’s family, at least when it came to things like celebrating holidays and stuff.  I mean, if Ann and my dad were hosting something, we were usually invited, but if they were spending a holiday with Ann’s extended family, we were not included.  I’m not sure what my place is in this whole thing.

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John Joseph Bilbrough, my father, grandfather to my three beautiful little girls, devoted husband, loving brother, took his final breath at 12:45 this morning.  My stepmom, Ann, was with him when he took that last breath, and I was notified shortly after the nurse in hospice pronounced him dead.  I arrived at the hospice at 1:20 and was escorted to the floor by the hospital security guard.  I went into his room, and Ann was sitting at his bedside, her sister in the chair next to her.  They both got up, Ann hugged me for a few minutes, and then she told me to go sit by my dad.  He was just as I had left him the evening before - the same position in bed, his mouth hung open as if he was still breathing in air through the gurgle in his throat.  I touched his cheek, which was cold for the first time since he went to hospice.  His hands and arms were still warm under the sheets. 

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My dad is a funny guy in an odd sort of way.  He has a huge stockpile of jokes - all of them old, most of them told time and again - but that’s not what makes him funny.  Funny are the comments like “I was born on a Friday.  I know because we had fish for dinner.”   He could always suck you in with a story about a guy he worked with, a relative, or a friend, but the story always ended in some sort of way that made you leave knowing it couldn’t be true, but wondering if it was. 

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The hospice nurse told Ann this morning that my father was at the beginning of the end.  I thought that was a week ago, but apparently not.  One of the other nurses put the stages towards death as Itchy, Bitchy and Twitchy.  In the very beginning, your skin gets very itchy.  They have been rubbing my father with some kind of lotion and giving him Benedryl to keep him from itching because it’s been bothering him so badly.  For the past two days, I would say Bitchy about covers how he has been.  He’s been agitated.  He wants help, then he doesn’t want help, then he wants to know why you’re not helping him.  He keeps repeating that he’s stuck there - we don’t know if that means in the bed, in the hospice, or here on this plane.  It’s a difficult thing communicating with him.  We had his TV on tuned to a Clint Eastwood movie - one of my dad’s favorites.  Ann said to him “You like Clint Eastwood, don’t you?” and my dad said, very belligerently, “NO!”  

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