I should have known better.

When I walked out of his hospital room on that snowy day in April, I suspected that I wouldn’t see my dad alive again. That turned out to be almost true – we did make it up eight hours before he passed that Sunday night in August, but he was in a morphine stupor and could only smile and mumble (well, he did manage to yell almost coherently at my sister one last time; how poignant). Thankfully, his death was peaceful.

I should have started calling around to the funeral homes back then to find the best deal. But life gets back to normal, dad starts “getting better”, and the thought slips from my mind. Then again, when all one is taking for metastatic colon cancer is two tablespoons daily of baking soda, any rebound is temporary. [Read more…] about Yes Virginia, You CAN Negotiate a Funeral (Even with the Body in the Back)