Clean Inside and Out by Homer

  Rain has descended on the east coast, for months!! It comes with a price. A leak in the basement, and not helping my mood, at all.
   I have decided to write a little.
   You may know that my dad, Homer, died recently.
   However I may have failed to tell you everything!!
   Mom had decided on a closed coffin, her choice. We understood, dad had a lengthy illness and he did not look like someone we knew.
   I need to see a body, I need to thank that earthly body for carrying my interesting daddy for so long. The human body is a beautiful thing. I also needed to put some laxatives and tooth pick cleaners in his pocket. So we arranged for the coffin to be open a few minutes before the service, for me and my family only. ( of course that includes Derek!) We walk into the front of the little chapel, and I may have screamed, OMG daddy......you look great!! There may have been a delay before I said, You look great, because the funeral person( whom I graduated high school with! Jacksonville!!)turned ash white!! He on one side of me, Derek on the other, and Bill behind me, with my kids. Who is that is the coffin?? My father looks twenty, Jesus.....Get my brother and mother in here!! The funeral director said, " Are you sure?" By now, I have inspected every area of daddy's body that is visible!! I replied to whomever was in hearing distance, "Are you kidding me, this is a miracle!" Get my mom and brother.
     They wandered in, thinking maybe, I had lost my marbles!! knowing full well, I have so few left!! They turned the corner and I said, "Momma come see daddy, he is your young husband again!" Benjie, brother man, jaw dropped, and Mom was so happy, to see her cute young boyfriend of 70 years ago. Honestly, we did not even ask them to really 'get him ready' to see, because the coffin was to be closed. His body, without the pain, was young. He had very little gray hair, so it was combed back, so shiny black showing, James Dean or Elvis was in that coffin! His hands were soft, and cute, not a wrinkle on him. He was not embalmed, due to cremation,so we were working a time frame, because he had to stay cold. I held on to everyone, that strolled down the center aisle to visit us, telling daddy who was there to see him, out loud!! " Daddy, look here, Jane Anders is here, you loved your visits with Jane!" " Daddy look Melinda is here, we both thank you for letting her use your car, for us to cruise Main Street!" Daddy here is........showing off my daddy.
   Daddy had a very weird affection for laxatives and inter cleanliness. We think it is because Big Mama, his grandmother gave everyone enemas for even sassy talking back!! Or a fever!! You had an enema!! Dad wanted his insides to sparkle!! and he went through a ritual of flossing his teeth, all of his life. I was in charge only once, with brushing his teeth in the hospital, of course I did it wrong!!
  He had little tiny, teeth, ground down from gritting his teeth, forever! I told him there was not anything to hardly brush, and he would say, I was wrong, because ice cream, even gets caught in between his teeth!! And if you asked to borrow a floss pick!! You were allowed one!! He was a character!! I would put my hand in the bag to get ONE, and he would say, " Now you have touched them all!!" ( which may have been my point!) ( he made me laugh !)
   I put a ziplock full of his picks and high powered laxatives in his pocket!!
  Benjie, Mom and I stood at his coffin, as they were closing the lid, loving on him, thanking him, and mom told him she was so proud to be his wife. He was clean inside and out, looking like a movie star, done on this earth.
    Still hard to be without him, I saw him in a dream last night, he looked good, I asked  how he was, He smirked, half smile, and shrugged his shoulders. So I told him," well that is pretty good, right!"
  He was gone
  Homer, a legend.