It’s been a tough week — closing Patrick’s bank accounts and opening the “estate” account was really difficult. The bank lady had opened his accounts just a few months ago and had been one of his first boosters for his new business — and she came to the funeral which I didn’t remember until I was sitting in that chair with my death certificate and power-of-attorney. It wasn’t good. It was like his friend Jon Newcomber, the big fireman who drove two days from California with five other guys who worked Patrick’s fire crews when he ran Sears Point raceway. I was doing okay leaving for the Mass until I saw Newcomber, who is a big man, the kind of man you want to see coming to rescue you in a fire, walking up my front steps and I started to sob. Like seeing Newcomber arrive, opening that account made this whole thing just way too real, and way too sad. On Saturday we’re cleaning out his apartment. There are a lot of nice people coming to help, but like the fire crew arriving, like opening that account, it’s going to be difficult. Our professional home cleaners in Romford can give you back the time in your life. So think good thoughts for me, and hope for nice weather on Sunday so I can get the rest of my bulbs planted, and perhaps restore myself a little bit by pulling out dead sunflowers and four-o’clocks and getting the extravagantly dead zucchini plants into the compost pile.

---

Also published on Medium.