Brad Barrish

I’ve been thinking about dad a lot lately and I’ve been sad. Life has been moving fast, but I think about him all the time. I was on trip recently. I have a tendancy to stare out of the window on planes and watch the earth while I ponder things. There’s this feeling I get in the pit of my stomach when I think about how much my life has been changed by dad’s death. It’s so painful. A lot of the time I’m fine, but there are times when I feel so lost, like I don’t know how to live without him. Sometimes I’m so confident in what advice he would give to me about something and other times I doubt it all. I think to myself, ‘you’re making all of this up and you have NO idea what he would say.’ I know this is all normal. How can it not be?

I’ve been remembering his final days a lot though. I can’t get them out of my head. I remember when they finally arrived to pick up his body and take it to the funeral home. Rigamortis had set in and when they picked him up from the bed his legs just knocked together from being so stiff. The life was gone from him. I just keep seeing that image. And replaying how fast it all happened. I was having a conversation with him and then all of the sudden there were no more conversations.

I was so stupid to think that I would be doing better than I am. I think the denial (not conscious) is starting to wear off. I cry all the time now. I was writing Sister a letter the othr day and started crying. I was watching one of the NCAA games the other day (which by the way, I never do) and started crying. I saw a picture of him with Brother and I and started crying. I came down with the flu last week and for whatever reason thought about him being sick and started crying. When I went to the doctor, it was one of those times when everything just falls in line. Somehow I hit all of the green lights, the lot was full until the moment I pulled up to it, as crowded as the lot was, I found a place immediately on the first floor, etc. And even though I knew better, I blamed it all on dad. It’s so silly, but I remember smiling and saying “thank you” under my breath.

When I was sick and called my dad to talk he would always express how sincerely sorry he was that I wasn’t feeling well. It was one of those things that you would dismiss quickly and probably not think about, but I’ve been thinking about it recently. “I’m really sorry you’re not feeling well,” he would say. And you knew that he meant it. When it echoes in my head now, I can hear it. It sounds so childish to say this, but I was feeling so awful, I wanted something, anything, to make me feel better, so I called my mom. I told her why I was calling and she too was very sorry about how I was feeling, but I think she liked the fact that her voice brought me comfort. Of course she did.

I’ve been thinking about dad a lot lately and I’ve been sad. Life has been moving fast, but I think about him all the time. I was on trip recently. I have a tendancy to stare out of the window on planes and watch the earth while I ponder things. There’s this feeling I get in the pit of my stomach when I think about how much my life has been changed by dad’s death. It’s so painful. A lot of the time I’m fine, but there are times when I feel so lost, like I don’t know how to live without him. Sometimes I’m so confident in what advice he would give to me about something and other times I doubt it all. I think to myself, ‘you’re making all of this up and you have NO idea what he would say.’ I know this is all normal. How can it not be?

I’ve been remembering his final days a lot though. I can’t get them out of my head. I remember when they finally arrived to pick up his body and take it to the funeral home. Rigamortis had set in and when they picked him up from the bed his legs just knocked together from being so stiff. The life was gone from him. I just keep seeing that image. And replaying how fast it all happened. I was having a conversation with him and then all of the sudden there were no more conversations.

I was so stupid to think that I would be doing better than I am. I think the denial (not conscious) is starting to wear off. I cry all the time now. I was writing Sister a letter the othr day and started crying. I was watching one of the NCAA games the other day (which by the way, I never do) and started crying. I saw a picture of him with Brother and I and started crying. I came down with the flu last week and for whatever reason thought about him being sick and started crying. When I went to the doctor, it was one of those times when everything just falls in line. Somehow I hit all of the green lights, the lot was full until the moment I pulled up to it, as crowded as the lot was, I found a place immediately on the first floor, etc. And even though I knew better, I blamed it all on dad. It’s so silly, but I remember smiling and saying “thank you” under my breath.

When I was sick and called my dad to talk he would always express how sincerely sorry he was that I wasn’t feeling well. It was one of those things that you would dismiss quickly and probably not think about, but I’ve been thinking about it recently. “I’m really sorry you’re not feeling well,” he would say. And you knew that he meant it. When it echoes in my head now, I can hear it. It sounds so childish to say this, but I was feeling so awful, I wanted something, anything, to make me feel better, so I called my mom. I told her why I was calling and she too was very sorry about how I was feeling, but I think she liked the fact that her voice brought me comfort. Of course she did.

The Albert Ellis Institute has a memorial blirb up on their web site. Dad was a Supervisor and Associate Fellow at the institute.

I was talking to a friend of mine on Friday afternoon. She was talking about how she was cursed and I told her that I didn’t believe in curses. And I don’t. Really. But there’s this thing that happens to me when I buy expensive things. Something ALWAYS goes wrong. Some of it could easily be avoided by simply making other choices. That’s to say that I accept some of the responsibility for things going wrong. Other times, I feel like it’s karma for making impulsive decisions. I do that from time to time. Over the last few weeks the following things have happened:

1. Someone rear-ended my new car. I was sitting at a stop light and some kid from New Jersey rear-ended me outta nowhere, leaving a couple of holes and some dents in my bumper. Insurance is exchanged, it's obviously his fault, I call his insurance company and they tell me to take it to one of their "preferred" body shops. It's near work, so I give it a shot. I not only disliked the way I was treated, but they wanted to just repair the bumper. The law states that the insurance company has to restore it to the condition it was in prior to the accident. How exactly does repairing the bumper restore it to the condition it was in prior to the accident? So the insurance company issues me a check in the amount of their estimate. I wrote a letter stating that I wanted to take it elsewhere and they tell me that's fine, but that I would be responsible for the difference, assuming there would be one. Super. So now I'm in the midst of fighting with the insurance company over covering the cost of the repair. To be continued.
2. I took my car in for its 5000 mile service. I dropped in off in the morning and took the bus to work, which was kinda fun. They called me and said that they found a leaky water hose and they needed to repair it. The problem was that they didn't have it in stock, so I would need to come down to the dealership for a courtesy car. The problem was I needed to get there by 5:30pm on a Friday, which means I would have to leave the office at 4:30pm. I told them that this was a huge inconvenience and I wouldn't be able to get the courtesy car until later. They then proceeded to inform me that I would then be responsible for renting a car if I needed one over the weekend. WHAT?! How exactly do they expect a working person to jump through such hoops. It's not like I leased a Kia or something. Long story short, I called a friend who was nice enough to take me, left work really early and drove in Friday evening rush hour to pick up a "courtesy car." Assholes.
3. Several weeks back my Apple Cinema Display started acting up, so spent the money to get a new inverter board for it. I detailed in previously, but when I got the replacement board from the lcdpart.com, it didn't work. My screen would come on for a moment and then turn off. The company said they would take it back, but it was a pain in the ass and I was pretty much out of options and couldn't work on my Mac Mini as long as I didn't have a monitor.
4. Shortly after I got my MacBook, I noticed the matte finish was flaking off around the edges. I wanted to wait until it got realy bad before I sent it back. I went in to an Apple Store and they basically said that there was nothing I they could do. I threw a fit and demanded that they document all of the details of the defect. Clearly it was a manufacturing defect and I wanted, at teh very least, for them to replace the problematic pieces of the computer. The "genius" made some notes on a case number and another few weeks later I called Apple. They reviewed the case and agreed to take it back. I sent it in on Wedensday and it was back on Friday with a replacement bottom, but they neglected to replace the top, which clearly was effected as well. Now I gotta send it back again.

There’s a plane flying right next to us. It’s far enough to not freak me out (for now). I’m just finishing the feature on R.D., Jr. and I have gas. I’m all hopped up on caffeine too. I took some exedrine for the pounding I woke up with this morning. The caffeine makes me want to shit. My skin feels like it’s stretched extra tight over the muscles and bone. My skin in cacking and flaking on my hands. I keepa pplying lotion and it just keeps getting absorbed. Where’s the hydration going? It makes no sense to me. A hang nail on my pointer is throbbing and as - try to grab the hanging skin between the nail of my thumb and pointer on the opposite hand, the skin tears further back. I suck in the recycled airplane air between the gaps in my teeth and my ass tinglkes from the pain. What I wouldn’t do for some little scissors right now.

I’m on my way home for the first time since dad passed away. I’m feeling a little emotional, but solid. It’ll be good to wrap my arms around mom and tell her that I love her.

There’s a plane flying right next to us. It’s far enough to not freak me out (for now). I’m just finishing the feature on R.D., Jr. and I have gas. I’m all hopped up on caffeine too. I took some exedrine for the pounding I woke up with this morning. The caffeine makes me want to shit. My skin feels like it’s stretched extra tight over the muscles and bone. My skin in cacking and flaking on my hands. I keepa pplying lotion and it just keeps getting absorbed. Where’s the hydration going? It makes no sense to me. A hang nail on my pointer is throbbing and as - try to grab the hanging skin between the nail of my thumb and pointer on the opposite hand, the skin tears further back. I suck in the recycled airplane air between the gaps in my teeth and my ass tinglkes from the pain. What I wouldn’t do for some little scissors right now.

I’m on my way home for the first time since dad passed away. I’m feeling a little emotional, but solid. It’ll be good to wrap my arms around mom and tell her that I love her.

Old people are dumb.

The Kansas City Star ran a feature on dad in Saturday’s paper. You can read it online.

There was talk about playing music at the funeral. He was really into Snoop Dogg, which cracked me up. He always said he was a black man trapped inside a white Jewish guy. For as long as I can remember, dad listened to funk, soul, r&b, hip-hop and jazz. He liked some rock n’ roll I think, but that’s not what I remember about him. Like so many other things, I have memories bookmarked by songs. I can remember being a kid, sitting in the passenger seat of his green Toyota Celica listening to Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration.” He loved that song. I remember looking up at him as he danced in his seat, clapping, snapping and biting his lower lip. I stared up at him and smiled. He was so cool. Other people might have thought he was weird as he rolled down the street, but I was rarely embarrassed by his enthusiastic displays. Well, not until i got a little older. You could really tell he was into a song when he bit his lower lip. He did it while he danced too, but only if he really liked the song.

There were many others I remember listening to with him. “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder, “Off The Wall” by Michael Jackson (he loved early Michael Jackson), “I Feel For You” by Chaka Khan, “Smooth Operator” by Sade, the USA for Africa album, Quincy Jones and so many others. From a really young age, I immersed myself in music because of dad. If it weren’t for his own love of music, I probably never would have ended up in the music business. His love of music had a tremendous impact on me and I love him for that. I remember him telling me the story of Motown Records, lots of stories about Quincy Jones and especially watching the Grammy Awards on TV. I was really hoping I could take him to the Grammys at some point. I know how much it would have meant to him. And i don’t mean it would have meant a lot to him to be around all of the celebrities, though I’m sure he would have had a good time walking up to them and telling them how much he enjoyed their music. I just think he would have appreciated the gesture and enjoyed a cool moment with me. I’m really sad that we never got to do that.

There was talk about playing music at the funeral. He was really into Snoop Dogg, which cracked me up. He always said he was a black man trapped inside a white Jewish guy. For as long as I can remember, dad listened to funk, soul, r&b, hip-hop and jazz. He liked some rock n’ roll I think, but that’s not what I remember about him. Like so many other things, I have memories bookmarked by songs. I can remember being a kid, sitting in the passenger seat of his green Toyota Celica listening to Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration.” He loved that song. I remember looking up at him as he danced in his seat, clapping, snapping and biting his lower lip. I stared up at him and smiled. He was so cool. Other people might have thought he was weird as he rolled down the street, but I was rarely embarrassed by his enthusiastic displays. Well, not until i got a little older. You could really tell he was into a song when he bit his lower lip. He did it while he danced too, but only if he really liked the song.

There were many others I remember listening to with him. “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder, “Off The Wall” by Michael Jackson (he loved early Michael Jackson), “I Feel For You” by Chaka Khan, “Smooth Operator” by Sade, the USA for Africa album, Quincy Jones and so many others. From a really young age, I immersed myself in music because of dad. If it weren’t for his own love of music, I probably never would have ended up in the music business. His love of music had a tremendous impact on me and I love him for that. I remember him telling me the story of Motown Records, lots of stories about Quincy Jones and especially watching the Grammy Awards on TV. I was really hoping I could take him to the Grammys at some point. I know how much it would have meant to him. And i don’t mean it would have meant a lot to him to be around all of the celebrities, though I’m sure he would have had a good time walking up to them and telling them how much he enjoyed their music. I just think he would have appreciated the gesture and enjoyed a cool moment with me. I’m really sad that we never got to do that.