On the morning of Sept. 19, 2008, in the emergency room, my father-in-law lay gravely ill and unresponsive. With Grandma and Stacy, I listened to the doctor explain PaPa’s status and the tests they were doing, what they’d found up to that point. Just before I stepped out of the room, I said to the
Read on »Posts Tagged: Gerald
Something about age eight
Last evening after supper, I was alone in the house putting away clean dishes, thinking. Grandma was outside on the patio watching Jeff and the boys toss the football around the backyard. I was drying things and putting them in their places, then loading the dirty supper dishes in the dishwasher, starting to fill it
Read on »A video tribute to Papa
Jeff and I posted our first YouTube video last night. I did most of the prep work, loading and editing digital photos and scanning older pictures. Jeff selected the photos and arranged them, basically in chronological order, and chose the song that’s playing in the background, “I Find Your Love” by Beth Nielsen Chapman. I
Read on »Cheated
Last Thursday evening was the third grade music program at school, so our family went to watch Kyle do his thing, and Sue rode with us. It was hard, as everything these days is hard, but we seemed to be doing okay, clapping and smiling, and even chuckling at some of the more amusing parts.
Read on »Voices in my head, these days
It has been two weeks since Gerald passed away. We are meeting with his doctor later this afternoon to hear more about the results of blood tests taken in the emergency room, and any other information from the hospital records that might help us understand how he became so sick so very fast. The first
Read on »How long do you hope for a miracle?
That was a question I asked Jeff in the Intensive Care family waiting room on Friday, September 19, 2008. My father-in-law’s condition was not improving. He was on a ventilator, and hadn’t taken a breath on his own since about 6am that day, when he’d collapsed at home. His kidney had stopped working, his lungs
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