<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  The heading of the one-page document is written in my father&amp;#039;s angular hand and underlined once: The Funeral. From time to time he would show it to me, remind me of where it was in his file cabinets. Two years ago he gave it to me, his eldest child, &amp;quot;to hold on to.&amp;quot; When he was hospitalized in October, I began carrying it in my purse. My father was a man of memos, which was odd because he was also kind of wacky, the sort of single older man who would reflexively and unobjectionably propose to waitresses and nurses, who loved jazz and jitterbugging and a good joke. But he brought a businesslike approach to personal matters, perhaps because it suited his MBA comfort level. When my husband and I borrowed money from him to renovate a row house the year after we were married, he drew up a contract that ran to several pages. His memos had started years before that. The father of five young children in a chaotic household blasted by our mother&amp;#039;s death, he famously sent us a manifesto on our behavior that included the line Bathrobes will be provided. When my sister, Theresa, visited from the West Coast each year at Christmas, he would print a detailed itinerary: TQ to AQ, Tues. AM. If AQ wanted TQ to arrive on Mon., there was push-back. Once he sent me a list titled Thoughts on your commencement address. Point one: good length (not too long). RELATED: Readers&amp;#039; Share Their Favorite Memories of Their Dads The funeral memo was detailed and specific: the name of the funeral home, the readings from the Old and New Testaments, the priests who should be on the altar. It might have been a grocery list for all the emotional content that was in it. It was the zenith of my father&amp;#039;s desire to put bullet points on paper so that everything would be under control, even mortality. It didn&amp;#039;t occur to me that one fall morning the hospital would call at 5:08, the unconscious world still gray outside my bedroom window, and that as I made coffee, adrift in the dark, the list would be my salvation. I couldn&amp;#039;t begin to know how to feel. But I knew how to proceed. Step by step, my father told me what to do. With the memo by the phone, I called the funeral home and the priests. My brother turned to the list headed Upon My Death Please Have These People Called and began to deliver the news. Lucky for him, phone numbers were provided. The Mass included the readings my father had demanded \u2014 a psalm about a storm at sea that his fellow fishermen surely appreciated; the letter from St. Paul about the power of love that our mother had written on an index card and bequeathed to us more than 40 years before. The choir to which Bob Quindlen had lent his full-throated baritone sang &amp;quot;Danny Boy.&amp;quot; The only thing The Funeral neglected to mention was the eulogy, which I delivered. I was very careful to make sure it was a good length (not too long). Anna Quindlen is the author of several best-selling books including A Short Guide to a Happy Life and, most recently, the novel Still Life With Bread Crumbs. She lives with her family in New York City. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/tips/a19302/anna-quindlen-father-essay/?src=shelter_footer>