Sitting in the funeral directors plush office at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel was surreal; one of those situations you dread your whole life but is much more normal than you expect.

We had to choose the coffin and discuss my father’s emtombment in the family masoleum. We even looked at a layout of the masoleum. We want my father next to his dad, Dewey.

is there a piano in the chapel, we asked. Because my friend Amy Burton will sing Schubert’s Du bist die Ruh" and a college friend of my dad will play Chopin on the piano.

"How many limousines will you need?" they asked. A discussion of getting to the cemetery ensued.

"Flowers or no flowers?"

"Jews don’t do flowers," my stepmother said.

"Actually it varies," the funeral director told her.

My sister wanted flowers, my stepmother did not. No real stalemate. We decided against because we couldn’t really think of a flower that represented my father. A big naturalist and birdwatcher, he wasn’t really a flower guy.

It all felt very ordinary. The secretary typed up the New York Times death announcement that I wrote down on a piece of paper.

We proof read it.

"It needs a comma here," I said reaching for a pen.

It all felt so ordinary.

The funeral will be on September 10th at 11 am at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel on Madison Avenue at 81st Street.