Crossing T's and dotting I's.

The other day I was having a conversation with a friend about something that she had been struggling with, something she had been thinking about, something she needed to take action on. She needed to "jump off the dock of her mind".

I am a procrastinator. I rarely if ever miss a deadline but I make lists, move things around, make more lists and then finally take action. In my married life I have been the one who manages the paperwork. I look after our finances, I schedule the appointments, I deal with insurance, banking and care for all aspects of our business life. I don't like it, at all.

Then there is this. I have settled one estate in my life. When Mike graduated from college and left for his first job, he was financially depleted. He had student loans, a truck that had seen prime 10 years earlier and I am going to guess that a savings account was the furthest thing from his reality. At the time of Mike's death, he had been working, hard, he had accumulated many things and now had an estate that needed settling. I was appointed to do the job. For the first time in my life, I procrastinated, nothing. I took care of his things in a way that could only have been called insane. I learned the business world in a way I had no experience with. Everyday for two years I made phone calls, I reviewed documents, literally hundreds of forms. I spoke with people on the phone from one end of this country to the other. I didn't make a single call that I didn't cry. I lay awake at night and made lists in my head, I couldn't let go. I let no one help me and if they tried, I became angry. I was parenting Mike for the last time and I was determined I was going to get this right. I crossed all my T's and I dotted every i.
At the end of two years, the job was complete, I had done all I could. I had an appointment with the attorney that had been helping me through this process, a man I had come to dislike.I needed him to put a legal end to the job I had been doing. Melissa came with me. I sat in his office and wrote the check that would end my son's business life. There was no relief, only deep and relentless pain, an end is still an end. I reached over the desk and handed him the check and I prayed that I could get out of his office without leaving the little I had left of me....behind. I made it to the sidewalk before the shaking started. I dropped my car keys and they fell into the gutter. I could no longer think, I stood on the sidewalk in a small town and felt completely without hope. I got in my car and did something I had never done in my life. I went straight to the small bar down the road from Mike's house and at 11 in the morning I started to drink. There were 2 other people in the bar, they tried to engage me in conversation, I had come to drink. I thought I was drinking to forget but as always happens, all I could do was remember. I stayed there all afternoon. No one bothered me, the bartender didn't over-serve me, when I asked for another, she brought it. I was an island of grief. Late in the afternoon, the door opened and a man came in. I knew this man and he had lost a daughter several years before. He sat down on the stool next to me and he said"bad day". A statement, not a question. We had a long talk about death. Our children. When I told him I was lost he said"let your children lead".
By now it was very late in the afternoon. I had left my cell phone at home, no one knew where I was. I had lost the right to drive many beers earlier. I heard the door open again and when I looked in the mirror over the bar it was Melissa that had come in. She came over and sat on the bar-stool next to me, she said to the bartender,"I'll have what she's drinking".
I like to think that Mike sent her. I like to think he thought I had done a good job. I know he knew I needed help. No one would understand more than Mike that sometimes you have to drink the pain before you can find your way home. I don't know how she knew, I don't know how she came. She said, she just knew. I needed her. She had come....to lead.

This is what I know:On the second anniversary of Mike's death I had two things still on my mind. Two things that bothered me on a daily basis. They needed my attention. It was time to "jump off the dock of my mind".
The first was something I needed to do for Mike. Mike was a Wildland Firefighter. It wasn't just his job title, it was who he was. He was born to be that person. I wanted Mike to be remembered at the Wildland Firefighter Memorial at the National Interagency Dispatch Center in Boise. Turns out, all I had to do was ask. I asked and they rolled out the red carpet. On the first weekend in May of that year, 15 people showed up to represent Mike. A marker is there and will remain there forever. It designates that Mike is from Minnesota and he called the Black Mountain Hotshots home.
The second was something I did for myself and for Marty. I wrote a letter to the investigating officer of Mike's accident. It is as follows:
Dear Jason:
Tomorrow is the 2nd anniversary of the accident that claimed the life of my son Mike. Two years of deep relentless pain that the English language has no words for. As Mike's family we get up each day and try to live the life that honors the good man he was. I wish you had known him Jason, I really do. Mike had an inherent understanding of people, of right vs. wrong, he had courage and great compassion. He was simply what we should all want to be.
I have had on my mind for many months that I have things I want to tell you. I went searching in my papers for your investigation report because I couldn't remember your exact name. I re-read the report and saw something I didn't see the first time. I saw that you handled things the way you did with honest intentions. You were trying I believe to do your job.
Please allow me to tell you what's inside my head so that I can let it go. It is all I can do to carry my grief, I can't carry anger too.
Please. Don't ever call another family and tell them what you have to over the phone. I don't care if that's how it's done. Don't be that person. Defy department rules. Show up. Stand there in person when you are going to destroy lives with what you say and when the storm of emotion hits help those families by your courage. You chose this job and with that choice you must show courage greater than the norm.
I am enclosing the memorial that ran in our local paper this week in honor of Mike. Mike was a proud firefighter for the US Forest Service. A true Cowboy in a Hardhat. You be a Cowboy too.
I wish you well. You have a hard job to do.

Cowboy in a Hardhat

by Curly Musgrave

excerpt:

But the cowboy in the hardhat

Is not like other men.

Who merely do the possible

To hold what's in their grasp.

He reaches deep within himself

And finds the strength to last.

Beyond the thresholds mortals keep

Within the lines and odds.

He'll stop the devil in his dance

Upheld by greater Gods.

But we'll remember when it's over

And take the time to tell.

Of the cowboy in the Hardhat

Who quenched the fires of hell.

I have been asked to manage one other estate in my life. If it ever comes to pass..and I pray it never will. I will cross every T and I will dot every I.

We all have the chance to be "The Cowboy in the Hardhat"

You be a Cowboy too.

till next time.