R.I.P. Russ
by Scott Hardie on May 4, 2026
Twelve years after losing her mother, Kelly has now lost her father too. This loss was a quieter and tidier affair, partially due to Russ not wanting a funeral or wake, and partially due to his very strained relationship with Kelly in recent years. We waited a few days to work out the trip schedule, flew up there, had a nice little graveside gathering with immediate family and then lunch out, spent time seeing the old hometown and Russ's new adopted small town (oh how I don't miss driving for hours through corn fields to get literally anywhere in Illinois), and returned with lots of tasks for Kelly to do to resolve the estate. I just went through the year-long process of settling my mother's estate, so I'm happy to provide advice that I had to learn the hard way, but there's also no way that I'm going to do it for her. Once was enough.
About that strained relationship: Without airing too much of the man's dirty laundry, let's say broadly that in recent years, he had fallen in with a series of criminals who were obviously defrauding him, and turned against his own family whenever they tried to stop him. There's been considerable debate among us relatives as to how much of this was Russ's choice and how much of it was cognitive decline: He evinced certain signs of Alzheimer's (and aggressively refused any evaluation), but he also had been engaging in this activity for a very long time, since before he was a widower. This has led to a lot of speculation about how much of the kind, supportive, utterly normal-seeming father who raised two children was always drawn to this sort of illicit activity, and how much of it was an exciting new "hobby" pursued as a sort of delayed mid-life crisis, and how much of it was simply dementia. Me, having watched Alzheimer's gradually make my mother disappear and be replaced by a perpetually confused stranger who lived in her body, I'm tolerant of the ambiguity around how much blame Russ deserves for his "life choices," but some other relatives resent him over the situation, foremost for lying about it for so long, and I understand why.
So, I choose to grieve not the difficult, reckless man that he was in the end, but the loving husband and father that he had long been. He welcomed me from the start and always made me feel like I belonged in their home, as a guest and eventually as a son-in-law. He could tell a "dad joke" as was legally required of him, but he preferred darker jokes with gallows humor. He enjoyed learning, and read books swiftly, and would sit with us to watch YouTube "edutainment" about science and literature. He liked Rachel Maddow, motorcycles, the Blues Brothers, deviled eggs, old Arlo Guthrie records, and Marlboro cigarettes. He loved his pit-lab mix (that dog was made of muscle), and the garden that he tended carefully for so many years, and the two towns that he called home for virtually his entire life, and most of all his family, a source of immense pride and love that was crystal clear whenever he talked about them. He suffered tremendously to support them, most of all his wife with her costly chronic illnesses, which caused him trauma from which he never recovered. Sometimes, when Russ could no longer make grim jokes and had to find something else to soothe himself, he was known to mutter, "Life's rough and then you die." It was, he did, and perhaps now death will bring him relief from his torments.
Russ, I wish you the peace that long eluded you. Thank you for more than words can adequately say. I love you.
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
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