One week ago this morning my father, Ernest Lee Carter, passed away. It brings a certain of level of comfort knowing he went peacefully in his sleep. No pain, no chaos, just slipped away. Since then my family and I have been dealing with it in our individual ways while coming together to get through it. I've been pretty removed this past week and fairly detached and kept my grieving private.
I was on my way to therapy when I got a phone call from my dad. Upon answering it I found his friend in hysterics. She told me that she had shown up to take him to an appointment and found him cold and unresponsive and thought he was dead. I told her to call 911 and my driver turned around to take me home while I made phone calls. Still didn't know for a fact that he was indeed dead so my phone calls were as vague as the information I had, "We think he's dead." After calling my sister, she made calls to other family members. If you knew him or know our family then you know we've had our scares in the past. Anchanie came home and we went out there to find sheriff vehicles and the friend of his. Before seeing him I was greeted by an officer who started off with "First off, I'm sorry for your loss," so we got our answer, he had passed away. More phone calls with concrete information. They next asked if anything was taken or if there were signs of foul play and there wasn't, he appeared to be sleeping peacefully. It must've happened that morning because he actually wasn't cold. My little sister Nikki showed up soon after and we waited for the guy from the coroner's office. Since then we've all been pulling together to get things done. Nikki and I have been out at dad's with our wonderful spouses and our amazing Aunt Wanda to get things cleaned up and set up.
We're still processing it. We've all had moments of wanting to text him or call him as we normally did only to remember that he's no longer with us. It still doesn't feel real, as if I'll wake up tomorrow and get a text from him. He wasn't just my dad, he was my friend. I hear trucks outside and I keep thinking he's gonna pull up as he did a hundred times before. One of the hardest things is how life moves on regardless of tragedy. I'm trailing off now but I'm still figuring things out. It's hit my wife really hard as well as they were close. He has a dog named Tinker who was his little bestie, we have him now and he's safe and loved. Right now there's so much to do that none of us will really be able to grieve or process until everything that needs to be done is done. I'd love to write about what he meant to all of us but I can't find it in myself to write much of anything at the moment so I'm going to continue my silence and processing.
He donated his body to science so we won't get his ashes for some time. He also didn't want a funeral, he hated funerals. Instead of a funeral we are having a celebration for his life on Sunday, September 2nd at 1pm at Lake Pavilion in Rothwell Park in Moberly. Feel free to come out and share your stories of him and it's a potluck so bring a dish if you can. If you have pictures or stories of him feel free to share.
Thank you for your patience with our family in this difficult time.
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