Family Drama (This post is not a happy post reader beware)

April 15, 2011 10:30pm If you know my dad he is a retired firefighter, and after 45 years of being required to listen to a pager and scanner 24 hours a day 7 days a week he stills listens to it and he has been retired for 2 years now. I decided to stay the night at my parents house, we were going to a craft fair on the 16^th, just us, Ethan was going to stay with papa. At 10:30 I heard the scanner page for a medical call, but I pain no mind to it, after all it was not anyone I knew. I was so wrong in that statement. A few minutes later my mom came in and told me the call was at Grandpas house and that he had a heart attack. I got up and my mom and I sat listening glued to every word that was said on the scanner, dad got in the car and had gone out there as soon as he heard the call. Pretty soon, we hear them asking for flight for life, my moms phone rings and it was my dad, he is not good he says it was a stroke not a heart attack. It doesn’t look good he says. Betty- my grandmother came to our house to pick up my mom so that they could drive to the hospital that convientently was less then 5 minutes from my home, it is were I had Ethan. Almost a 45 minutes drive from my parents, one of the leading stroke hospitals in colorado. Anyway, I tried to reach the hubby and his phone was turned off, so I called the Police department and had them go and knock on our door because I was really going to need his support for this. I got home and put Ethan in his bed, and kissed him on the head and told him how much I loved him and off to the hospital I went, where the events of the next 5 hours would change my life forever.

When I got to the hospital Mom, Dad, Betty were in the waiting room waiting to be allowed to see him. I had been there about 15 minutes when the nurse allowed my mom and Betty to go back there. My dad and I talked and he said that based on his experience it would be a miracle if grandpa pulled through this- (My grandpa has pulled out of some rough stuff before)About 5 minutes later my mom came up and told us that the nurses would allow all of us to be in the room, at that point I started to realize that I was going to be saying goodbye to my hero. ( I will tell that story someday) When we walked into the room it was such an erie feeling. The doctor came in and told us that Grandpa had a massive stroke and the blockage was so large that it caused the artery in his brain to “burst” doc expalined that there was really no chance of survival and that if my some miracle he did survive he would not be able to talk, walk or do anything for himself. My grandpa was a proud man and he would not have been able to live like that. The doctor told us that we would have to make the hardest choice, keep him alive on machines or let him go. I made the phone call to my sister at about 1:30 am telling her she needed to get to the hospital asap, she lives an hour away. During this time the choice had been made to remove life support, For the next hour we were able to talk to him and hold his hand and say good bye. Up until about 2:30 his heart rate would spike when we talked to him, but it leveled out around 2:30 and never spiked again. My sister arrivied at 2:45 and came in and said her goodbyes, At 3:00 am surrounded by my mom, myself, my sister and Betty, Life supporting maesures were removed. That was the longest 27 minutes of my life. Something that I wish I would not have seen, but at the same time I am greatful that he was surrounded by people who loved him. We stayed with him for a little while and I said a prayer for him. I felt like I was abandoning him when we left him. I went home as did my parents, sleep was impossible.

This is where the story gets interesting a turn in events. Betty got an appointment with the funeral home at 2:30pm on the 16^th the sameday that he had passed. My parents told Betty that they would pick her up at 1:30. Now you have to understand that Betty was not always the nicest person to my mom or any of her sisters, and honestly a lot of things have come out of the wood work since grandpa has been gone about how evil she really was. My parents arrivied to pick her up and were discussing options etc, Now there are 2 daughters of my grandfather that live in California, the big argument all morning had been what to do with grandpa, cremation or burial. Also as to what day to have the services, The Daughters in CA were not going to be able to get here before Thursday so the hope was to have the services on Sunday. The 3 daughters wanted him buried while Betty wanted him cremated anyway… Betty and mom were discussing this when my mom made the comment, that she didn’t care as far as his remains, but would really like to have the services on Saturday so that her sisters could make it. At this point betty went crazy and physically assulted my mom, my dad stepped in the middle and got my mom out, there were a lot of harsh words said by Betty, she blammed my mother for making grandpas suffer while waiting for her daughter to get there etc. At first I blammed it on grief, but as this story unfolds I would discover that the women my grandfather was married to had an evil side that no one expected.

TO BE CONTINUED