Emotional content continues. We thought our father’s rally might sustain for a while. My sister called me Monday afternoon, Feb 21 with word he had passed away. She and her husband were headed back Tuesday, but I explained my situation with the friend in rehab to everyone. I wouldn’t be able to travel until Friday, the 25th. As it turned out, due to other circumstances, Sunday the 27th was going to be the best day for the funeral.

Ironically, my schedule for this trip is identical as the previous with the 5:24 a.m., out of Miami on a Friday and I’m scheduled to return on the 6:30 from here on Wednesday. The difference was I did use my “faithful driver” as he always claimed he was fine with pre-dawn pick-ups and was at our door his usual cheerful self at 3:15 a.m., yesterday. The drawback this time was the section of the airport we were in had absolutely nothing open; and as I had observed last time, there are no vending machines in the airport. Despite the many trips through MIA, I’d never noticed that. I’ll probably email about it at some point. There were two places preparing to open for what I imagine was a 5:00 a.m., start. That is early, but not quite early enough. I did have half a cup of coffee on the ride in and managed to make it until they served us a small cup on the flight.

Connection at DFW was still tight although a little better as the terminal for the swap was closer than before. The delay came in a ridiculously long wait to pick up the rental car. I did make it to the lawyer’s office before their lunch break to get the documentation I need as executor. My sister and brother-in-law then met me at Burger King for lunch before we went to take care of a critical piece of bank business.

In another of life’s ironic twists, our brother can’t come up because he and his wife have some cold/mild flu – COVID tests negative, but carrying any germs into a crowd these days is not appropriate.