The Business of Dying

In my free time during the past month—which has been in short supply lately--I’ve slowly been winding up Bunny’s financial affairs.  For years, I asked him to write down all his accounts and access numbers, but he never got around to it.  Once it became clear that his outcome wasn’t going to be good, I urged him to make the list and to visit a friend of mine to draw up a will.  He put off doing that, too.   He always used to tease me about being superstitious, but I think he believed that actually sitting down and writing a will would hasten his death.

At any rate, his final spiral was so sudden that there was no time to properly get his affairs in order.  On his last night on Earth, he scribbled notes with passwords and account names.  It took me awhile to figure out some of them—another thing we had in common is poor penmanship.   Since he wasn’t working, Bunny took care of all the bills and left me free to devote myself to less mundane pursuits.  Fortunately, he paid most of them electronically from our joint account, so they were easy to track.   In retrospect, it was a mistake to leave all the finances up to him, because I had a steep learning curve once he was gone.   Lesson: if your partner does all the family accounting, at least touch base on the issue from time to time.

When I finally had the presence of mind to start the task, I thought of putting together a list of all the things I needed to get done.  Then I figured that wheel had already been invented, and went on a Google search for it.  Sure enough, there are several helpful checklists available with just a mouse click.  One thing I learned was that I would need several copies of the Death Certificate.  It takes about two weeks to get the Certificate, and you can’t get very much done until you have it in hand.   The crematorium would order them and give them to me when I went to pick up Bunny’s cremains.

Over the years, we’d had some of our beloved pets cremated, and the urns were about the size of a regular-sized box of Pop Tarts.  I knew Bunny’s cremains would be more substantial, but was surprised when I went to pick them up and the manager put a cinder block-sized box in my hands.  It weighed about as much as a cinder block, too.

“Wow!  That’s a lot bigger than a cat!” I blurted out.  Fortunately, he had a sense of humor, and laughed along with me.

We sat down and he explained about the differences in the two types of death certificates: one has the cause of death, and one doesn’t.  As the appointment came to an end, I asked whether he needed to see my ID.  Ever the lawyer, I was nearly appalled that he hadn’t demanded to see it when I first came in.  Lord knows, the pharmacies have no problem demanding ID for decongestants.  No, he believed I was who I said I was.

“What if I was someone else coming in to hijack the ashes?”

“Like who?” My security-consciousness amused him.

“Um, a disgruntled family member.  A mistress, perhaps.”  I could play this game all day long: my pessimistic side can conjure up every worst-case scenario for any occasion.  He didn’t want to encourage me, though.    Bunny’s ashes and I were soon on our way.

I’ve faxed, copied or mailed the Death Certificate many times since then.  On Thursday, I took it to a credit union where Bunny had a small account.  I explained to the teller that my husband had died and I wanted to close out his account.  She sent me to the manager’s office.  The manager was a pleasant, pretty young woman with a slightly lilting, island accent.  I learned that she was born and raised in Antigua. I told her what I needed and she took the Death Certificate I offered.  Her eyes widened when she saw Bunny’s name.

“Oh my gosh!  He said he wasn’t leaving until the summer!” She looked genuinely distressed.

“That’s what we thought. It was very unexpected.”

“Did his son make it down here?” She was on the verge of tears.

“Yes, he and his family moved down in early December, so they had the whole month together.”  Relief seemed to wash over her.

“Oh, good!  So he had his son and granddaughters with him for Christmas!”  Just then, the assistant manager passed her door, and she called him in to tell him of Bunny’s passing.

“Oh, no!  Did his son get down here in time?” To his relief, I assured him that he had.

I wasn’t surprised that these strangers knew minute details about Bunny’s life.  Ever since we dated, he loved to chat up people like they were friends whose only interest was what was going on in his life.  Once he was diagnosed with cancer, no one was spared the details, and once it was clear that he was on a short lease, he would bust out the news without provocation.  For example, one day we were looking at potential houses to buy as investments.  As we walked through one and the real estate agent was explaining the features of the house, Bunny surprised her with his news.

“I have less than a year to live!” he announced, in the same upbeat manner with which one announces a new puppy or baby in the family.  Needless to say, the recipients of this news were always a bit startled by it.

Cashiers were a favorite target of Bunny’s chat fests.  When Joey was little, Bunny would talk to a cashier for about five minutes, oblivious to the people waiting behind him.  If the subject of college arose, as it often did, Joey would proclaim “My dad has three degrees!”  I would just roll my eyes.

Bunny was also extremely nosy.  He eavesdropped on every conversation he possibly could, and would explain to me the dynamics at play between the couple arguing at the table next to ours, or the fellow theatergoers engrossed in conversation before a movie.  Whenever he claimed not to have heard something I said, I always pointed out that he had no problem hearing total strangers across a room.

He loved children, and if he saw someone with kids, he’d listen for their names.  Then, he’d either ask the parents a question about Timmy or Jessica or would actually engage Timmy or Jessica in conversation.   The parents would almost always abruptly answer or shuffle their kids away. 

“You’ve got to stop doing that!” I urged.                                                                    

“Why?  Kids love me, and they think I’m magic because I know their names.”

“Yeah, but it freaks their parents out.  They think you’re perving on their kids.”  The thought had never occurred to him.  He still continued to talk to kids, but didn’t call them by name.  Their parents seemed fine with that.

Bunny spent lots of time at the credit union, since it’s right down the road from our house.  Whenever he got chemo or blood transfusions, the nurses were his chat subjects.  The lady who cut what remained of his hair always brightened when he walked in.  I think his curiosity was why people remembered him so well—of all the customers they dealt with in a given day, he was probably one of the few who took the time to have any meaningful conversation with them, much less show interest in their lives.