Not quite a week, but a long one (part 3)

. . . but has become more than a week, by the time I finish posting about it . . .

Sunday morning I wanted to get up and play and sing at 8:00 mass as well as 10:30. I like doing that when grandchildren logistics don't prevent it, and since they were with their dad for the night I had no conflict. I'd gotten my music ready Saturday evening before bed, and arose with the alarm to get ready to be at the church by 7:30.

Music went well, and I had a chance afterward to talk with my wife's friend a bit about how things had been going for both of our families. I traded texts with Teri, too, asking her to bring me a banana so I could eat a bite between masses as I hadn't had anything already. I was pleasantly surprised when our other guitarist was there for mass, as we probably hadn't played together in a couple months. At both masses Jesse's passing and arrangements were mentioned during the announcements. Afterward we decided to leave Teri's car where it was and take mine to the hospital for another visit with Michael. His mom was there, too, preparing for his release.

While g-ma was ordering lunch for him, I received a panicked text from our youngest. Her ex was saying that he wasn't going to let the kids go with her on Sunday. I presume this was because they said they didn't want to, even though it was her birthday. She had gotten him to relent, but asked me to go get them as she was worried that he was going to be verbally abusive to her. That plan ended up being too complicated, though, as I don't know exactly where their dad lives, and none of the cars that were easily available had capacity for two adults and four kids. She ended up going and getting them herself. I tried to go over and find the place in case there were any problems, but I couldn't and there weren't.

I headed back home and had a nap, then took care of the kitchen, which had been neglected since Tuesday. About the time I was headed to the festival for some dinner before my shift I received a panicked text (theme of the day) from our oldest asking if I could please deliver a baby gate to her house to keep the dogs safely away from Michael's freshly-repaired leg. So, off to West Carrollton I went, running into a traffic slowdown on I75 due to an accident that was being cleared. I got back to the festival with about enough time to go to the basket booth, where I was persuaded to agree to drop another $10 that I really thought better of but which we had budgeted for festival. (We didn't win.) At that point I had time to grab a Polish sausage and report for the final shift at our booth. Inventory management resulted in apologetically listing for each customer that came to our booth in the last hour-plus of the festival the ever-dwindling options that were available for their selection. Most of them were pretty good-natured about it. We also took up the carpet remnants we used for padding; this was the first year that they were still dry by Sunday night. Normally this might have been left for booth tear down the next day, but there was overnight rain in the forecast, and it's so much easier to handle dry carpet remnants than sopping wet ones! We also took down the roof tarp to take advantage of it being dry. Even though it didn't rain until late the next afternoon, it turned out that these preventive measures paid off, as they barely finished tear down before the rain started.

All-in-all, it was a pretty crazy week. It has, of course continued, with details for music for Jesse's celebration of life, and a birthday get-together with all of our daughters and grandchildren.

Not quite a week, but a long one (part 2)

Saturday morning's wake-up was probably earlier than it needed to be. I've got a bit of a Catch 22 going on: there is no point in buying room darkening shades so that daylight doesn't wake me, because my wife has been sleeping with the window open and the curtain pulled back to facilitate air flow. So I got up, ate some breakfast, and had plenty of time to get ready. She got up a bit later, and we donned out bib numbers, finally found her arch tape, and headed to the parish for the 5k.

After finishing my run with far-and-away my best over-50 time, I started walking the course to join up with the mrs. About a mile back I met her, and walked the rest of the way in with her. We had some breakfast and were still in the gym when they came in with the results. They were only awarding the winning men and women in three groups: overall, under-15 and over-50. I've always wished I could place in the awards in my age group, and have never managed it. I figured I surely wasn't the first finisher among the old folks; there were a couple of guys who were ahead of me the entire race who looked like they were my age. Much to my surprise, I won my age group! I keep telling everyone that it was only because the fast guy - way faster than me - who has won our age group every previous year wasn't there, but that doesn't make it any less special. 

While we were finishing breakfast, Fr. Dave sat down next to us. Before we had a chance to talk, his phone rang or buzzed, and he proceeded to pick up a message. I could tell by the look on his face that it was about Jesse. We went home and showered and headed to the hospital, and the family came out from where they'd prayed together with him prior to Fr. Dave giving him last rights. I'd taken my guitar with me, determined to sing a song to him, but right after Fr. Dave left the room the doctors came in to examine Jesse. It was clear that he was not responding to what they were doing.

We patiently awaited a chance to go in and sing to him. After a few minutes, the doctors asked his parents to leave the room, too. As they stood in the hallway talking with another friend, it seemed as if they'd prefer a bit of privacy, so Teri went out to be with the rest of the family and I moved just a little further down the hallway, where I stood silently praying the rosary, leaning against the wall over my guitar case while awaiting a chance to go in and sing to him. A few minutes after I finished the rosary, the doctors came out and informed Jesse's parents that they'd hold a family consultation in a half hour. By then Teri had rejoined me, and Kathy gave us the go ahead to visit with Jesse. As I finished singing Healer of my Soul to him, a hospital chaplain came by, and after ascertaining that a priest had already visited, offered to pray with us for Jesse. So we did that, then headed back out to the family waiting area. Jesse's dad came in after the consultation to tell us that the doctors had declared Jesse brain dead, and that he would be evaluated for organ donation before being disconnected from artificial life support, which would also give people a last chance to say goodbye. Two of our girls came up to be with this dear family during this time; our oldest daughter was tied up with our oldest grandson and couldn't join us, but made it a point to have us express her condolences.

We were committed to be at festival for a while - Teri first, with me joining her later - so after our girls left we also shared hugs and love with Jesse's family and friends, and I dropped Teri off at the parish and headed to the other hospital for another short visit with our grandson. On the way onto the floor a quartet of young men were on their way out, one of whom had a cast on his arm. I asked them on the way by if they'd been visiting with Michael, and the one with the cast indicated that he had been the driver who had caused the accident. He was clearly remorseful for what had happened, and I looked him straight in the eye and told him that I wanted him to know that I forgave him. He was very appreciative of those words. I then went into Michael's room, where he was surrounded by four more of his friends, another one of whom had been in the accident, too. They left after a short while, and I visited with my grandson for a brief time before having to head back to the festival. It turned out that I wasn't on the schedule as I'd thought, but I was much needed to haul soda and ice from the trucks to the booth. Sometime after I got there we received a text asking us to observe a moment of silence for Jesse at 4:44, which we did; we later learned that was when they were disconnecting him from life support. It was hard to believe I'd only been working for a half hour at that point, it had been such a busy time; it remained that way through the completion of our shift at 7. After starting the day with 3 miles of running and another two of walking, it made for a physically tiring day.

At that point, we got dinner - I had my annual cabbage roll - and headed to the house. I'd been scheduled to babysit the younger set of grandkids, but had received a text in the afternoon that they were going to dad's instead. I thought Teri might go visit Michael in the evening, but that didn't work out that way; she was just too tired for the drive, and I didn't feel up to taking her, either. We hung out quietly at home and called it a relatively early night.

more . . . 

Happy birthday to me

I saw this when she posted it on someone else's timeline over the weekend, so I expected she'd say the same to me: While you are celebrating your special day, be sure to celebrate you.

I don't think I'm quite there yet. I did manage to give myself the gift of a lubricated shave with a new blade this morning, though.

Not quite a week, but a long one (part 1)

It started with an element of confusion, with a text on Tuesday night that I wasn't expected to see until Wednesday morning. As a result, I thought that Jesse had collapsed on Monday night, and perhaps slightly underestimated how dire his situation was. After all, his grandpa would surely have communicated with us right away if it had been life-threatening. By Wednesday afternoon, I understood what had happened with the initial text, and we went to the hospital in the evening to see this young man who we still think of as the little boy who had spent so much time in our home.

If we hadn't understood already, we knew on seeing him that he was in the fight of his life, but were still hopeful that he might recover. His grandparents soon arrived back from out of town, and we stayed at the hospital several hours to be with them and with the rest of his family and their friends who were there.

On Thursday I didn't really interpret the family's reported signs of "improvement" in the same way that some of them did. I knew from experience that eye and body movement alone were not evidence that he was recovering. I agreed to stay with our grandchildren so that my wife could go visit the hospital again. She had been the one who'd spent so many hours providing child care for him and his sister when they were children; most of that time I was at work. Our youngest worked a double that day, so grandma had been watching kiddos all day. I figured it was best for me to give her a break, and the kids and I enjoyed some fun trampoline time together. I guess that might have been too soon after dinner, though, for our youngest grandson, who ended up being sick just before mom got there to pick them up after her shift. He was sick again during the night, but better the next day.

Friday was a scheduled off day for our youngest daughter, which ended up being a good thing when we got panicked phone calls from our oldest daughter in the afternoon indicating that her oldest son had been in a wreck. She sounded pretty hysterical, so I left work early to meet her at the hospital. All my friends already know the details, and I won't embarrass my grandson by sharing them here. But his injury was pretty serious, and his recovery will be a long road that will probably never return him to 100%, except by God's grace and healing power.

Friday night was also the beginning of the parish festival, and I had some Marriage Encounter brochures and schedules to drop off, so I left the hospital in time to make that happen. My bride had driven separately, so she hung out a while longer waiting for the results of the surgery. I don't remember the last time I wasn't able to attend Benediction at the start of festival, but I was able to drop off brochures in time and then, by the time Teri got there, had our registration forms for the next morning's 5k ready for our signatures. I then went home to let the dog relieve himself, and went back to the festival when Teri asked me to deliver a couple things she needed - decent shoes, socks, her arch support tape. It turned out that when I got there she decided she was ready to leave so we could visit with our grandson at the hospital, but at least I got to see the younger set of grandchildren there with their mom - her oldest of whom in particular was none too happy to have to listen to her instead of being able to run free.

We checked in with our oldest daughter on the way to the hospital; she was in the room when we parked, but left before we got upstairs. We didn't stay long, as it seemed as if our grandson was drifting off to sleep and we were pretty tired, too. We learned the next morning that, while his pain was being managed pretty well, he was still pretty much unable to sleep most of the night because of it.

Does being so guarded make me a bad husband?

Things that matter

It matters whether your kids get to school on time most of the time.
It matters whether they have food to eat.
It matters whether you lie about where you're going when we watch them.
It matters whether you're continually on your stupid phone when they're with you.
It matters whether they're embarrassed to have their friends come into their house.
It matters whether they think you're a monster.
It matters whether they want to go home.
It matters whether they think of it as home.

No, seriously

If you're just going to unilaterally decide that you have good enough reason to ignore the budget, then I'm going to stop doing it.