Preparing to Visit Massachusetts

My dad and I traveled to Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2011 because his sister died unexpectedly. I lived in Portland, Oregon, and he lived in NW Indiana, an hour from Chicago.

Massachusetts, Part 1

On August 18, 2011, at a little after 5:30 pm, my dad called. I hadn’t started getting ready to go to a party scheduled to start at 7 pm, and a part of me hoped he wouldn’t talk too long and another part of me wondered what happened.

I picked up the phone and found out: his sister Aunt Barbara was found lying in her condo five or six days after she died. I felt shocked and dismayed at hearing this, even though I never got to know her well — tears welled up in a matter of minutes and I struggled to suppress them. My dad invited me to go to Cambridge, Massachusetts with me in order to do such things as find my aunt’s will if she had one and figure out what to do with her possessions if she didn’t. He said she had spoken of making a will, but he wasn’t sure she had ever gotten around to doing it.

My dad had been spending a great deal of time on the phone because he was in touch with numerous people in Massachusetts: Aunt Barbara’s last boyfriend, Al; the director of a funeral home; the building manager for the condo; and at least one or two friends/colleagues of Aunt Barbara’s. He said he’d call me back for updates and…