Its very notebook of them
(back to the serious)
I am still overwhelmed. I am trying not to be, but I am. This post may go all over the place, but I am just trying to process.
Hello Everyone:
Thank you all for your phone calls and well wishes for Danny’s
Parents. I thought it would be easier to give you all an update at
once instead of making alot of phone calls and repeating myself so
here goes.Last Saturday Danny’s mom was taken to the hospital with heart
problems. She was released from the hospital on Friday afternoon with
a diagnosis of severe heart problems, kidney problems and will be on
constant medication and oxygen until she passes. They figure she will
have a massive heart attack in the future but can’t tell them how long
that may be. She at this time requires 24 hour care.Wednesday of the same week, Danny’s father collapsed and was brought
in by ambulance to the same hospital. Dan was there visiting his mom
and met his father in the emergency. He was admitted that day. He is
still in the hospital and is terminal. His prognosis is fatal with
lung disease. They can’t say if it’s going to be days, weeks or
months. The family is trying to get him home because that is what
Dan’s father and mother want but we can’t get him well enough to do
so. He was planning to go home today but had a set back and they
reinserted the IV and it looks like he won’t be able to go home before
Tuesday. He also will be on full oxygen needed 24 hour care when
they get him home.So to summarize, a week ago everything was well and in a week both
parents went down at the same time and both are not doing well.
Danny’s is trying to keep it together and entire Wade family is
feeling like they just got hit across the head with a ball bat.I will try to update you as much as possible if things change. It is
very humbling to see how quickly life can turn on a dime and the world
around you changes. Thanks for all your love and support to our
family and please keep Danny’s family in your prayers.All our Love
Danny, Cathy, Jamie, Sara and Staci
That was an email my mother sent out regarding my grandparents health this week. Today she called and told me that they believe my grandmother may pass today or within days, and my grandfather will soon after. They are adament that they are going to go together. My grandparents are both at home, hospice has been called, and almost all their children (yes, all ten of them) are by their side, with the rest on the way. The children are staying strong because they know this what their parents want.
I am too, but I am so sad. I am so so so sad. I talked to my Dad on the phone, and I cried, and then he cried, which made me cry even more. It is hard when fathers cry. Even as a twenty eight year old woman, part of me still thinks fathers are supposed to be strong and brave all the time, and so it hurts when they are hurting, and its scary when they are scared.
I also got to talk to both my grandmother and my grandfather. They didn’t say much, but they told me they loved me and I said what I needed to.
For those of you who may be confused by my family tree, the Dad I am referring to is actually my step-dad, but he has been married to my mother and therefore been my father for practically my whole life. I don’t remember a time when he wasn’t my dad. I grew up with him. I adore him more than almost anyone else in the world. Between both of my fathers, I am defiantly a daddy’s girl.
The funny thing about my Dad, and in turn my grandparents, is they have never ever ever treated me any different than any of their other children or grandchildren.
(Great I am so sitting at work crying again)
But it is true. I have always just been theirs, and they have been mine.
I have countless memories of growing up and my grandmothers chocolate chip cookies and swimming in the pool with my grandpa and huge family dinners, and playing in the big sandbox with all the ants, (yeah ants, not aunts, there was a tree over the sandbox and ants used to always come down the tree and live in the sand) and family reunions.
Family reunions are my favorite.
Every single year, the first week of August, my whole family (all 10 aunts and uncles with their spouses and cousins etc etc) get together at my grandparents home in Michigan. They have a ton of land, and every year we camp far out in the woods on their property. My mom, being my mom, never brings a tent but rather a pop up trailer, 70’s style, that she decorates with astro turf and hanging baskets and pink flamingos.
But Sunday is my favorite day. We all get up early and get in our finest to go to Catholic Mass with my grandparents. The men wear ties and the girls wear dresses. We always sit up front and take up almost four pews. It just feels so much like… family. And then we go back to my Aunt Paula’s and make breakfast and sing old songs like 15 tons and dang me and pasty Cline and such…
That afternoon we have the official wade family reunion, and everyone is invited. I have brought friends and boyfriends and even my “other family” Some friends come every year. We all make a dish and there is so much food.
After lunch we have our annual Wade family softball game. My grandpa has a field in his back yard with a fence backstop and dirt infield and we have one of those old fashioned score boards where you hang the numbers…. My Dad and my Uncle Pete are always captains, my grandpa is always the ump. There is a trophy. All ages play. Afterwards we have a home run derby, and if you hit a ball over the pine trees (which now must be like over 50 ft high) you get to autograph the ball and put in in my grandmas china cabinet.
My grandparents started that. They brought us all together from wherever we were in life and even just for that week… we were family.
That is what I talked about with my grandparents today when I said goodbye. I told both my grandfather and my grandmother that every good and fantastic thing I know about commitment and love and life and faith and family I learned by watching them. That I learned and I am who I am in huge part because of who they are. That they raised amazing children and amazing grandchildren and they leave a legacy. And that I love them so so so much.
(Still crying)
My mother, again being my mother, put a positive spin on the whole thing. She talked about how both my grandparents and their children got to make amends for anything they needed to. They said what they needed to. She pointed out that we all got to say goodbye and we love them and they got to tell us back. She said all the children prayed the rosary with my grandma because that is what she wanted, and there is peace.
But the thing she said to me that stood out the most is that they are doing this together. That my grandpa is holding my grandmas hand and whispering to her, and that they still love each other and want to be together in this life and the next. They chose life together, and now, in many ways, they are choosing death together.
And for me, a girl who is on so many levels terrified of commitment and trust and love, that is an amazing testimony. My grandparents in death are teaching me what they did in life… that loyalty and family and love and commitment and faith are all we have.
It’s very notebook of them.
And I am still so sad for me and for my family and the loss we will feel, but I am at peace knowing that my grandparents know God and they know love, and we are all better because of that.
I love you guys.
(tears)
