On June 6, 2008, we will build on the legacy of the courage of D-day.
While we will be meeting at the end of Ocean Park Blvd., in Santa Monica, CA, we invite everyone to "storm" their local beach, and at 12 noon PST, we will take 10 minutes to pray for peace worldwide.
Arlington
"I’m qualified to be buried in Arlington," Poppa blurted out over the phone during one of our daily talks.
"Great." I responded, not sure what to say.
"Yeah, apparently they put on quite a show. You don’t have to go if you don’t want to. This funeral home, Reddens, will take care of the whole thing when the time comes."
I smiled. Poppa and I often battled over who was more adult. Either I was, when we spoke of his inevitable demise, and he’d change the subject, or he was and I’d get sad.
This time I listened. I thought for a moment of the logistics; I live in California, he was in New York. Getting to Washington DC for the funeral, flying to New York then taking a train to DC. I’d have to clean out his apartment in the city... All this in the minute it took me to process that he wasn’t dead yet; which I informed him.
"I know, I’m just letting you know the good news," Poppa said.
Now to the average person, they might think this strange, but since it was only Poppa and I, several years before his death, I had asked him to handle his own arrangements. I’d spent many years worrying about his death, and worried frequently about how I would cope with the loss. I was the child and for this one instance and I wanted him to be the parent. It was a long process and he always balked.
Poppa’s own mortality frightened him. "I can’t do that." He’d say. "There’s something downright morbid about it."
"Poppa, when you die, I’m going to be a mess. I’m not going to know what to do. Please handle it."
I’d asked him more than once, and each time it ended with me asking him to take care of it. So, when he informed me that he’d be buried in Arlington, it was a serious step.
The morning he died, I went to the hospital to say goodbye to him. He was so peaceful lying in the bed, finally free of his human ailments.
His nurse was in the hall waiting for me. "Have you made arrangements?" she asked.
Tears in my eyes, I robotically handed her the card for the funeral home that had been tacked up on Poppa’s bulletin board for several years. Poppa had pointed to it many times when I visited, even spelling the name during one of our many phone calls.
Moments later, the nurse returned.
"Everything has been taken care of. David at the funeral home asked that you call him to schedule the funeral date and time." She patted my hand. "It’s incredibly kind of your father to take care of all this," she said.
I thought about all the prodding I had to do to get him to do it. But then, he listened when he knew it was important to me. He took care of me even in his death. My father had been a good man.
When I stopped by the funeral parlor, David sat down with me.
"You know," he said, "I always knew the call would come someday, but I’m sorry that it did. I really liked your father."
I thanked him.
"Did he ever tell you the story about how we met?" David asked.
He hadn’t. As usual, even in the end, with Poppa, there was a story that brought a smile to someone.
"One day, I’m out there in the main room, and the door opens just a hair. I see this man peek inside. I asked him if I could help him and he shook his head, then he says ‘Do people, you know, make their own arrangements?’
"Sure do," I said, but before I could say another word, he thanked me and was gone. Well, about three weeks later he comes back with his checkbook. Tells me that he’s on a fixed income and he wants to make monthly payments. It took him a year to pay it off, but he did. I want you to know he was very excited to qualify for Arlington."
I thought back to the day he told me. Shock, mixed with pride echoed through the phone line. ‘Arlington,’ he’d said, as if he, a poor boy from Cleveland, had arrived. His final address would be one shared by JFK, along with many of his fallen comrades.
"So," David continued, "I asked him if he had a Purple Heart, and he said yes -- and then he added -- with an oak leaf cluster." David laughed, as if the oak leaf cluster was unnecessary information.
I sat up. "An oak leaf cluster means he was wounded more than once in the same campaign." I informed David, who appeared interested, but then that was his job.
He went on to explain to me that since 9-11, they couldn’t ship remains to Arlington. Things had to be hand-delivered.
It was odd at that moment, how many times I’d felt that my father had inconvenienced me, and right then I couldn’t imagine not attending his funeral.
I made arrangements to pick up Poppa’s remains in a few days. My friend Linda would borrow her mother’s car and we would together, drive to Arlington.
We were on highway 50 when a sign came up for the George Bush Center for Intelligence. I heard Poppa say, --"So, that’s where it is."
Linda and I chuckled about it.
In a poignant twenty-one gun salute, one of the honor guards handed me a folded American flag, and teared up as he spoke, "On behalf of the President of the United States, and a grateful nation, we thank you for your loved one’s service to our country, and offer our condolences for your loss."
I placed Elek Tisdale Hartman in the ground. I faced him to the northeast since his beloved New York City was in that direction.
Poppa was right. "Apparently they put on quite a show," he’d said.
His final performance was most impressive.