About a month after my father parted company with this world, we (me, and the previously mentioned relatives and my brother) arranged a service for him. I had pictured it being improvisational, with a loose framework. It seemed fitting.

  My aunt Helen brought pamphlets, like they used to give me in church. She works for a church, and it is a focal point of her life. When I first looked at the pamphlet I thought it seemed too detached, and generically spiritual and not in any way a representation of who I believed my father to be. I also thought it represented who my aunt thought her brother was or at least who she may have hoped he was. Either way, I thought about how we both may have our own interpretation of who he was, and what is a fitting goodbye. I was more interested in keeping it honest, knowing that if there is any afterlife, or ghost activity he could be looking down, up or making eye contact with us, thinking this is bullshit. I didn’t want that. I also didn’t think it was that important to disagree. It doesn’t change the fact that he is gone.

  When I was a kid my father used to invite Jehovah’s Witness’, and other zealots into his house, while they were making the rounds, saving souls. His intent was not to listen, and it wasn’t a case of not knowing how to say no. He was very comfortable saying no. He would pull out his Bible that he had studied from cover to cover while he was doing time, and go to whatever page his guest would go to, and challenge their interpretations, and explain to them that it’s all about interpretation. He would tell them this passage may seem self evident to you, but nothing is self evident if you are a good student. He explained that God wants you to really think about every line in his good book, and to really understand it. He would try to get me to be an accomplice. I didn’t feel comfortable in that role. It seemed a bit aggressive, at least passively. Without fail the person would leave quietly, maybe mumbling, but always visibly uncomfortable and defeated. 

  Around seven years ago or so, his addictions had become such a problem, that nobody in the family trusted him. We had little contact with him. Unless you’ve lived with an addict you might have trouble realizing how irrational it all seems, how unromantic, and heartbreaking.

  Somewhere along the line he started going to a church called the Church of the Lost and Found (I didn’t make that up). He continued to go there until he died. His beliefs were never completely clear to me. When I asked if he was a Christian, he would say, “I have my own way of looking at the world.” I think that was always apparent.  He mentioned that he needed something to give him discipline, a place to go where the outlet wasn’t an outlet that would get him in trouble. I didn’t really care what his beliefs were. I was just glad that he was distracted from his previous distractions.

  An Important reason for picking that church, was that it was a congregation where his problems were the norm. He always talked about how he enjoyed the theater of personalities in the church, and there was just enough chaos to keep it interesting.

  He may have stopped using some of the illegal substances, or at least it appeared he did,  and he said he did, but he continued to drink cocktails all day long and swear like a sailor. He did have a place to go, that wasn’t threatened by a police raid, or the unpredictable behavior that surrounds that sort of activity.

  I don’t know if that explains my acquiescence towards my aunt or not, but it was nice to have peace. We joked how his death had really brought the family together, and his life many times didn’t. 

  We all agreed to read different parts of the pamphlet as we stood on the dock of the Banana River in New Smyrna, the wind was blowing fairly hard the day of his wake. He wanted his ashes thrown into the water in New Smyrna. He seemed to have some sentiment about that. We have all been going there since we were kids, and now Julie and her family live there, and so does my cousin Leslie and her family.

  Everyone took a communal sip from the cap of the Stanley thermos that my friend Alex had given me. Alex was excited about giving it to me when I told him that my father used to drink screwdrivers with fresh squeezed oranges and cheap vodka in thermos’ like that every since I can remember. 

  My brother threw the ashes from the plastic urn that looked like something that would hold giant index cards. I guess it was the economy urn. Some ashes blew back in his face. It was suggested that the smart ass ghost of my father had done it.  I’m not ruling anything out.

  We finished the thermos as two fisherman continued to fish from the dock, occasionally looking back at us.