The good news was that I started a new job that I really love. I am now a case manager working with preschoolers at a community mental health center. After a great first day of work, my dad called late in the evening to let me know that my grandpa (his dad) had passed away. My grandpa had suffered from dementia and had been really sick the past few weeks and was not eating. He was in a nursing home and had hospice care the last few days of his life. It was a year to the day that my grandma had fallen and broken her hip, which set off a sequence of events that led to my grandpa going to live in the nursing home.
I worked a few more days, then we loaded up and drove the 7+ hours to Missouri where the funeral would be. We arrived just in time to check into our motel room, change our clothes, and then meet up with the family for the viewing. I've never had to do this before, so I had no idea what to expect. It was difficult, but in a way, it was nice to know that my grandpa wasn't suffering anymore. He looked so peaceful. I tried to keep DW away from the casket so that I wouldn't have to explain death to him. However, he wandered up there at one point and said, "What's wrong with that man? Is that man sick?" I just replied, "Yes, he's sick." The simple mind of a 3-year-old...
The next day, Nov. 12 was the funeral and burial. The weather was unseasonably warm and beautiful. Everything turned out nice...good sermon, good time with family (some we hadn't seen in years), good food, the kids cooperated, etc. The only thing missing was grandpa.
My grandpa had a lot of tough things happen to him during his life, but he had peace in his relationship with the Lord. He was such an example of a good Christian man - he worked hard, was a devoted husband and father, and served wherever he could in his church. He honorably served in the military and was a prisoner of war during WWII. Sadly, his hearing declined so much that we had difficulty communicating with him for the past several years so I feel like I didn't know him as much as I would've liked.
I felt like I couldn't be as supportive to my family as I would've wanted to be since I had to also be mommy to my little boys. At that time, HJ had only been with us 6 weeks. It is not recommended to travel with a newly adopted toddler since they have already had to deal with so many changes, but obviously we didn't have much of a choice. It was very very hard. HJ was doing well adjusting at home, but sleeping in a strange motel and meeting a lot of new people was a whole different story. He cried off and on each night we were in the motel, he was very clingy (which is a good sign that he was attaching to us), and he just wasn't his happy self. Motels and my grandma's house are not set up to accommodate curious toddlers who find the uncovered outlets, pull on cords, eat random things off of the carpet, try to play in toilet water, etc! Our long drive home was even harder. HJ cried and whined almost the WHOLE drive home. He hated the car seat and just wanted out. Nothing would soothe him and when he cried, DW would cry too! The trip wore Tim and me out!
I'll leave this post with the last picture taken of my grandpa and me. We went to visit him in the nursing home in January 2010.
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