Hearse Catcher

I attended yet another memorial service yesterday, for a golfing friend of my father's, WE, who had his memorial in the veranda of his beloved MGolf Club. His love for golf was hard core, and as Carlos said am sure it gave an idea to all the other hard cores in the club that they could have their wakes set up between the 18th and the 1st greens.

I've started looking for a golf share to rent at this club, been wanting to start playing again, but the search for one has been elusive. My options:
1. brother has a share that he is not using but I cannot rent it from him because he has not been a member for 30 years, it's simply not allowed as it is an individual share
2. buy brother's share, or "buy" his share on paper, but still need to pay a couple of million bucks for the taxes
3. be appointed as a director of a company with a share, and that share be assigned to me
4. look for a member who has been active for 30 years to rent me his share
5. look for a golf widow who no longer wants to use the share, but only within 6 years from the death

To which friends last night called me a hearse catcher.

Wala Nang Tatay Gang

I belong to a loose association of daughters I've called the "Wala Nang Tatay Gang" (No More Fathers Gang). I found that when I lost my father, it was the turning point for me into real adulthood, into real responsibility. Something that I verbalized some years ago to a new friend on a warm summer night in the East Village while I was living in New York. Turns out that Megan had lost her father too, about the same time I did, and that we felt exactly the same. As it has been with other friends who have lost their fathers. It does not matter what you age you are when he passes away, if you're 15 or 50 or in my case, when I was 23. It just changes you completely. A few weeks ago, Leah, Marga and I were sitting around the gallery, and I realized that we were all part of the Wala Nang Tatay Gang. Leah had a good point: she goes to a lot of funerals because she remembers all the people who went to her father's and how meaningful it was to her. As I added that I really enjoyed Marga's dad's funeral as it was so well done-- from the music to the flowers to the eulogies.

I make it a point of going to wakes and funerals. I can't say I enjoy them but I really appreciate them. Pulling off a great wake and funeral is difficult but is not impossible. Tita Pam's father's wake was very nice, and her eulogy was incredibly honest but strong.

Today, with a heavy heart, I welcome Julia and Akiko Thomson to our sturdy group. I did not know J Marsh Thomson well in life but he was a handsome man with a wonderful family. This evening, he looked very handsome in a pina barong in a dark wood casket. With his uniforms and his military medals on one side, and photos of family and animals on the other. He will be missed.