I hope you have all been well.
It's been almost three weeks since my dad passed away, and things have been up and down emotionally for all of us. Mom has been thinking about a lot of things that should have been tip offs that things were not going well with dad, and he wouldn't do much about them until after they got really, really bad. I know that he was not the same after his open heart surgery, and things started going down hill really fast. We all figured it was just something that happened after heart surgery until things got more stable. I know that some people heal much slower, especially older people. But this was more of a rapid down hill slide. Little did we know just how bad things really were. Mayo Clinic confirmed what the doctor had found in the biopsy.....adenocarcenoma. It is a cancer that originates somewhere in the GI tract....liver, gall bladder, stomach, etc. But they couldn't pinpoint just exactly which organ it started in, and since an autopsy wasn't done because the basic cause was known, we will never know just exactly where it started. And, he was cremated.
Mom gave me dad's truck because I had helped her out financially when dad was in the hospital and with some of the funeral expenses that had to be paid the day we made his funeral arrangements. It is REALLY HARD to drive that truck knowing that my dad will never drive it again. It was his first new truck he had had in years. He bought it in 1994. The truck, like my dad, quit working on December 13, 2012. He didn't know that it was in need of some other work besides the front end. The fuel injector, spark plugs and starter all needed to be replaced, plus 2 tires that had some problem or another. But, the repairs will be done so that I can drive it safely. But it is really hard to drive it as I keep thinking he'll be wanting his truck.....I know, he's gone, but I am still having an issue with wrapping my head around the fact that he is not coming back.
I know that we've all been thinking about all of the times that we have spent with our parents, and how much love there was between us all, even in our not so good times, we loved each other a LOT! I had made both of my parents quilt tops when I was in Oklahoma in 2011, but I hadn't gotten them into quilt form. I got dad's done, and hoped that he would be able to enjoy it before he passed, and know that he had it. But that was not to be. I finally got it done on Saturday the 19th, but he was not conscious the whole day. He passed away under that quilt. Mom has been under it (when she's in her chair watching TV) since we brought her home the morning of the 20th. She finds it hard to go to bed at night, and she wakes up about 12:45 Sunday mornings and doesn't go back to sleep until after 3:30. She thinks that his time of death was actually about 12:45, not 3:15 when the nurse pronounced him deceased. She's regretting not being awake and with him when he passed away, but I know that my dad would not have wanted her to see him leave her. Their lives were one. They were a true couple. They didn't do too much without the other knowing what was going on. When dad had to be away to do seed corn harvest, he was on the phone with her when he wasn't doing something else. When he was on lunch break at Walmart, he called her. He would call her when he got to work, and call her when he was on his way home. It was what they did. They didn't like cell phones, but they used them for those calls when they were apart.
Well, I'm going to go back and watch TV with mom. My sister that has been living with our parents since September is in Alabama helping her oldest daughter. Her grandson will be having surgery Monday and her daughter will be having colonoscopy Wednesday, so I've been here since yesterday evening, and will be here until next weekend sometime.
I hope that I can get back to feeling creative soon, and start sharing with all of you again!
Love and HUGE Hugs
Trish
