Ode to Grace

This is not the next slide of which i had had previously, ideas to share. I've had to think about it. And here's where i'm going;

Mom after a tiring day at work, (at Bonnie Doon Mall), resting, in the living room, on the very long couch i used in student residence, in HUB Mall, some twenty years later.

Some interesting asides; doesn't she look soulful in pink?

It has to be dad taking the picture....wonder what he was thinking/feeling?

Notice the glasses on the top of the couch? Click on the pic, gets real big, check em out, way cool.

A personal aside, if all my siblings were reading my blog, i would be in seventh heaven. And probably obsessed with embarrassing them all. Kidding.

My intended message regarding this picture; My own experience with the changes we've seen in this family in the too recent past. I speak only for myself, my sibs can speak for themselves, (Though they know i already know what they think, like, uh, i can't read them like a book? ...A very interesting book of course. Smiles.)

For as long as i can remember of my adult life, i've thought my Mom, the Lady on the couch, would be the first to go...her chronic high blood pressure, and other things..she was just damn tired i would say..refer to picture....and i feared losing her first, not knowing how to deal with Dad....missing her terribly....and, selfish as i am, wishing against odds having her to ourselves...yes, i'll say it, without Dad.

Then something came along, out of the blue, (more like fire from hell..which i don't like btw), and Dad, being the big ole strong guy he was, ignored the pains in his belly, for years, (Judy remembers a trip with Mom and Dad, and he would hold his stomach while driving.....was a year before the diagnosis..Mother couldn't see it, Judy would), He finally got to a doctor, CAT scan week later, and we all know the shock of the results. Dad, and Mom, were the first to hear it. Freak on that. Good thing i can cry and type at the same time. I'm not going to say the 't.c.' words.

The next few months were pure hell. I was overwhelmed with shock, despair, and trying to imagine how Dad was thinking. One day when i was sitting with him while you others were out on an errand, he asked me, "why don't i just end it?", i don't remember my exact response, but it was something like, because you don't want to. Knowing him as i do, his despair then is beyond my imagination.

Then the place he moved to, more quickly than i would have liked.

The night i remember, Mom, Judy, David, Jackie, Linda, and Stu were there, Dad was almost gone, i sat beside him, the only sittin' space left, held his left hand with my right, he liked that, i could tell, and i held my left hand on his forehead. Judy and David also came to his bedside to physically comfort him. It was the most complete, and memorable moment i've ever had.

That night is my last, and best memory of Dad. I'm not sure, but i think it was a few days after when he passed.

When i first started writing this, it was eventually going to be about how we all were so glad to have Mom still around, how we had gotten a special second chance to know her, but had paid dearly for it. I sure didn't see it coming.

But getting through what i've said about that sad time, with Dad, took the wind out of me. I got to the original intended ending, and had a good cry in the process besides, so this is just fine.

Now the Man behind the camera has left us....and the Lady on the couch is alive and ticking. Thank Heavens. And Hell. Seems stuff evens its self out. Still hurts though.