This Guy

Last week Jeremy and I took our first kid-less trip ever since having kids.  It's been a little over 7 years!  Normally I do not like to travel without the girls.  I worry about them, I worry about the sanity of the people watching them, and I worry about something happening to Jeremy and me.  For MY sanity, it is really just better to travel with kids.  But this was a trip where we decided we just could not take the girls with us.

Last Sunday, as Jeremy was traveling to New Orleans to attend his friend's funeral, we got word that his grandfather was not doing well, and the doctor was not giving him long- a few weeks at most.  My mom offered to watch the girls for us so that we could go see him and say our goodbyes.  I actually really debated for a long time about whether or not to bring Shelby.  I didn't want her to be upset at missing the opportunity to say goodbye, but in the end, I knew it would be much more upsetting for her to see Papaw in his condition.

We left Thursday night and headed over to the nursing home early Friday morning.  When we got there we learned that they had taken Papaw over to the hospital for x-rays.  We thought it would be quick, but after visiting with Mamaw all morning and going to eat lunch we decided to head over to the hospital to see what was going on.  They STILL had him in a tiny room in the ER, and would only let 1 person back at a time.  When Jeremy came back in the waiting room after seeing him he told me, "If they hadn't told me what room he was in I would have walked right passed him."  I knew right then we had made the right decision about leaving the girls at home.  Jeremy was right.  Papaw looked nothing like himself.  A shell of himself.  He is battling Alzheimer's, pneumonia, kidney failure, and as we learned Friday, Parkinson's.  After hours in the ER they decided to admit him again.  We spent some time with him in his room.  He tried hard to talk to us, though we could only make out about 1/8 of what he was saying.  At times it was clear he couldn't remember who we were, but a second later we could see that glimmer in his eye that told us he remembered. 

We had really good visits with both Papaw and Mamaw.  It was very hard leaving Papaw, knowing that was likely the last time I will see him alive.  Jeremy is going to try to go back sometime this week.  I am very grateful to have known this guy.  He is kind  and caring.  He is brave- he fought in WWII at Tarawa and Guadalcanal.  Read about him here- http://tarawaontheweb.org/jordan.htm .  He introduced Jeremy to the awesomeness of peanut butter and bacon sandwiches.  Right now we are praying for comfort for him- that he won't live out his last days in pain.  He is just a great, great man, and we love him very much.