Urgency

To my son Tommy,

The dead regard the living with a mix of pity and laughter as the living go about their "oh so important" tasks with such urgency and fervor. Your Grandpa Leo is in his next place laughing as I try to get an "oh so important" piece of paper that all those "oh so important" companies and "oh so important" government agencies need to do the "oh so important" job of handling the affairs of those who passed on to that next place. Between Gilchrist and the Maryland State Anatomy Board and Maryland Vital Statistics and the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, I play a sad little slave to bureaucracy and frustration and building anger as I try to get a death certificate, just to go deal with the next line of companies and institutions of bureaucracy and their problems. Lord, give me patience. Lord, give those who don't do their jobs properly hemorrhoids. I kid, I kid. I  wish no one harm. I will just climb my mountain top, yelling of these minor injustices to whomever will listen, until I stop and calm myself and realize my own "oh so important" sense of justice may be hastening the time you will have to get that "oh so important" paper for me. If that time comes, I too will be laughing in that next place and giving you a 10% chance you receive my death certificate, 60% chance you receive the certificate of your Grandpa Leo, 30% chance you receive that of your Great Grandpa Leo. Aren't you glad I didn't name you Leo?

Sincerely with love from your dad,
Leo