My heart is heavy

I lost my Granddaddy yesterday.  He fell at his house on Friday and hit his head really bad. He had severe brain damage and bleeding in his brain and was in a coma. Nothing the doctors could have done would have changed his quality of life and he would have remained in a coma until he died. So my grandmother made the decision not to do anything to sustain his life, which is the decision I know he would have wanted. The doctors assured us all that he wasn't in any pain but he was on morphine just in case and to help him breath more comfortably. Paul and I spent most of the weekend at the hospital and we even took Gray for a little while one day. He was such good medicine for everyone. Since getting to the hospital Friday evening, the doctors had been saying he could go within a few hours or a few days.

God showed his perfect timing in so many ways. My cousin is 39 weeks pregnant with her second child and lives in Wilmington. She was distraught that she wasn't able to come and see our granddaddy and tell him goodbye. At her doctor's appointment on Monday she showed no signs of the baby coming anytime real soon so her doctor gave her permission to go to Greensboro for one night. She was able to spend a lot of time with our grandparents, her mom and brother and some other family. She was able to tell Granddaddy goodbye. Cole, our godson and my cousin's first child, and Granddaddy were good buddies. Cole sang Granddaddy songs and gave him hugs and brought smiles to everyone in the room. When I heard yesterday morning that Granddaddy would probably go sometime that day, I immediately began getting ready to head to the hospital one last time. I started praying right away that God would keep him holding on until I could get there and say goodbye one last time. I told my aunt to tell him I was on the way and to wait for me. Paul had a teacher workday yesterday and his workshop only ended up being a half day. Not a coincidence! I was so happy that he would be able to go with me. So I waited for him to come home and at the last minute we decided to take Gray to my friend Kristen's house in case we ended up being at the hospital for a long time. I was sad I wasn't going to get to see my cousin because they were going to head out at noon to get back to Wilmington. We got to the hospital at 2:00 and because Ashley had such a hard time leaving our Granddaddy, she was just leaving and we literally ran into her on her way out. We got to hug and cry together and Paul and I got to see sweet Cole for a few minutes. Then we headed up to Granddaddy's room. His breathing was so slow and although he looked peaceful, I could tell he was close. I talked to him for a few minutes and thanked him for waiting on me. Just a few minutes later he took his last breath. I'd never witnessed that before but it was as peaceful as it could have been. God allowed everyone who wanted to, to come and see him and say goodbye before he passed.

Granddaddy would have been 87 on the 30th of this month. His physical health had declined quite a bit over the past few years but he was still living in the same house my grandparents have been in for 45 years. He never wanted to go to a nursing home and always said he wanted to be at home. He loved going to the grocery store more than anyone I've ever known and had just gotten a good Harris Teeter senior day trip in the day before his fall. Though it was unexpected, he went the way a lot of us would want to. He never suffered and seconds leading up to his fall he was at home with my grandmother, doing what he loved. My grandparents celebrated 63 years of marriage this past September. What a huge blessing that was!

Granddaddy would want us rejoicing over his long life and remembering funny stories about him. Like last year when Paul and I took him to Cracker Barrel for his birthday. It was early December and we had just told them I was pregnant. He was so excited. There wasn't much I was wanting to eat at the time so I just ordered a few vegetables. We told Granddaddy to order whatever he wanted. He ordered the small trout plate and went on and on and on about how good it was. We certainly shared a love for food. After talking about how delicious the trout was, he told me he was going to change his order to the large size because it came with two pieces of trout but mostly so he could give me the extra vegetables. His meal came and he woofed the whole thing down, including those extra vegetables, never mentioning another word about giving them to me ;) My grandmother was telling us about their trip to Harris Teeter the day before he fell. She said a lot of times they would each get a cart and split up, so they could get done faster. They always met back at the register and checked out together. This day she couldn't find him at the register when she got done. She went back up and down all of the aisles and he was nowhere to be found. She finally saw him on the other side of the registers sitting down. He had already checked out. Finding that odd, she decided to see what was in his grocery bags. Not to her surprise, he'd snuck a bunch of junk food and checked out in hopes of "not getting into trouble". He was a little stinker like that.

Though he is already missed so much, those are the memories I know my family will focus on at his funeral service this weekend. For that and for his long, healthy life I am thankful.