Sad Weekend

The weekend started badly with news from my good friend, Carole, that they'd had to put their dog, Rudy, to sleep. Having done that once with a dog of the same name when Jared was exactly 3months old, it brought back a lot of my own sad feelings, on top of feeling sad for my friend and HER loss.

Saturday evening, I get an email from my mother telling me as she was getting out of her car at home after running errands that afternoon, she heard a scream from across the street and ran over to see what was going on. She found her elderly neighbor, Sally (77) laying on the ground in a pool of blood, having fallen from a ladder while staining her house. Her husband, Jim, was inside the house calling 911 so my mom stayed with Sally and tried to keep her still (she was semi-conscious). The paramedics referred to the injury as a "devastating injury" and said they don't usually see people pull through after these types of injuries. We found out this afternoon that a CT scan showed so much damage the doctors weren't willing to attempt surgery and Sally passed away.

And a phone call from my mother this morning informed me that my Papa died sometime overnight (paternal grandpa). It wasn't entirely unexpected, but still a shock and I'm very sad. We had a family reunion in September and I tried to get a picture of all three kids with him. Connor wouldn't cooperate at all, Jared gave up at the last second and is walking out of the picture, but it's a very sweet picture of Emily and Papa. I didn't force the issue overly much assuming I'd have other chances.




Here's the only picture I have of him with all three kids (Connor was 3.5 weeks old)


Emily was very sad because she'd recently drawn him a picture, which we were going to deliver last Friday, but we'd been warned that the flu was going around the nursing home pretty badly so we opted not to go (I have another grandpa in the same nursing home and figured I'd just stop in and visit them both since Emily was out of school for a teacher inservice day). I promised Emily we'd still give it to him, so I guess I'll be taking her to the cemetery at some point because she made me promise I would. It's hard explaining death to little kids. Jared told me he was sorry Papa Sonny died and then asked when he would get better. Oh, the innocence of the young... I take comfort that Papa is no longer suffering. His vision and hearing and mobility had severely deteriorated and I know he was unhappy. I wish he would have lived long enough for Connor to have had some memories of him, but it's unfair to wish an unhealthy existance on anyone for a prolonged period of time for selfish gains... By the way, Emily remembers getting a $1 bill along with candy at Halloween each year from Papa Sonny! I used to get silver dollars as a kid.

Please keep your thoughts with my friend Carole over the loss of her beloved pet, Rudy, and with Jim for the loss of his wife, and with my family as we deal with the loss of a family member ourselves.

This has just been such a sad weekend...