Making it all too real

Death has a way of making you think. For me, the loss of my FIL has opened up memories of losing my grandparents. I was too young when I lost my two grandmothers. I have a vague memory of my paternal grandmother and nothing of my maternal grandmother.

My grandfathers, however, were a part of my childhood. Losing my paternal grandfather was really when I experienced the total death and funeral scene from beginning to end.

The call came in the middle of the night. The ringing awakened me and my friend Robin who was spending the night. We both listened to the one-sided conversation coming from my parents' room next to mine. I could hear the solemn tone in my father's voice, and I still remember the worry and how fast my heart thumped, knowing the news on the other end wasn't good. That it had to be news of my ailing grandfather. I remember Robin reaching to hold my hand under the covers.

My father came into my room and told me his father had died. I cried but not so much for my own loss. I cried for my father's suffering. His parent. Gone. Forever. And my grandfather's death brought forth a reality I hadn't yet experienced. Parents die. Someday I too would lose my own father. It was a horrible, terrible jolt of truth and a terrifying one.

We had the phone call for my FIL in the night. He'd been taken by ambulance to the hospital. My husband went immediately to be with his mother and sister. I didn't tell my daughters much that morning. Because Tom had been home with a virus for two days, they assumed daddy was still in bed. I didn't tell them any differently, but when I picked them up from school later that day, Roger had died.

I broke the news to them. Tom was with his family, picking up relatives at the airport and helping to finalize arrangements. I didn't think I could drive home with their idle discussions of school, and I worried Darcy would ask questions about Tom that would make me cry. So, keeping in mind my feelings of losing my grandfather and my reality check, I parked far away from everyone, sat them on the floor of the van, knelt in the grass at their feet, and took their little hands in mine.

It was so something my own mother would've done, and I'll probably cringe years from now, but there are no rules in parenting, and so I did what I thought best.

I told them Roger had fallen the day before and hit his head. I explained how he'd gone to the hospital but how he'd fallen again once he arrived home. By now, my voice was cracking, and tears were running down their cheeks because they knew.

They've watched two grandparents decline in health this past year. They've made countless trips to the various hospitals to visit both. By the time I told them that their grandfather had died peacefully in his sleep, they were both sobbing in my arms. It was a solemn ride home.

We spent the rest of the evening grieving. The girls sat in my arms on the couch while I held them and wiped tears. They each grieved in their own way. Darcy lay in bed, sucking her thumb, holding a picture of her grandparents, and listening to sad music. Madison lay in bed, clutching her blankies and thinking.

Both wanted to hug their father. They had questions about his mental state, his grief, and whether he'd cried or not. They both wanted - and needed - to see for themselves, he was okay. Because, like me, the reality was smacking them in the face, and they wanted him home so they could have both parents safe and sound.

A huge loss in our family

Last Wednesday, my father-in-law, Roger, died peacefully in his sleep. He'd had a couple of falls the day before where he'd hit his head, and this caused bleeding in his brain that was just too great. His health had deteriorated in the last few months, so it wasn't a great shock, but it is a significant loss.

My relationship with Roger was a comfortable one. Not having a long history, having met him only when I entered his son's life in adulthood, helped with this, I'm sure. He wasn't a talkative man or a demonstrative person, and he was a quiet man unless he had something to say or an inquire into the conversation. Most of the time, I hadn't a clue what he was thinking or feeling, but after he died, I sat quietly and thought of times where I'd felt a connection.

*The first Christmas I spent with the Boos family was a tough one. It was my first holiday away from my family, and my first experience in sharing another family's traditions so vastly different from my own. I went through periods of loneliness and sometimes a sadness so high I thought I might burst from the pain of it, but I somehow held it together. I didn't think anyone had noticed.

As the evening came to a close, Tom and I were saying our good-byes. Roger, without any prompting, reached out both arms and gathered me close. Unusual for him. He was the type to participate in a hug, but rarely would he initiate one. This hug was a real one, tight and embracing, and as we hugged, he thanked me and then told me he loved me.

He had noticed, and he understood how forgoing my family Christmas to be with Tom, and his family had affected me. I chalk that Christmas up as one of my most memorable ones.

*Several years ago, while sitting on my in-laws' couch, I was staring at a print hanging on their wall. It had been there for a few years, but staring at it that day, one of those days where I had experienced a particularly bad episode, the print with the wolves in the snow instantly brought me peace. It was very healing. I sat quietly with these wolves in the snow, their stares telling me all would work out fine.

I related this when my MIL and FIL joined me, jokingly asking if I could have the print when they were deceased. I told them I truly liked the print and how it spoke to me. My MIL joked about other items in her house and then related a story of an instance after her own mother had died. Then we moved on.

A few days later, they came for dinner. My MIL took me aside.

Mary Anne: "After you left the other night, Roger took down the print over the couch and wrote your name on the back."

Me: "Seriously? But I was only kidding about that."

Mary Anne: "Doesn't matter. It's yours now. I've never known him to do something like that, but he really wants you to have it." She laughed. "But I'm not dead yet, so don't get too excited."

I was numb for the rest of the evening but in a good way. Not about someday receiving a print, but about the gesture. He heard me, joking aside, and understood. I don't care if I ever own the wolf picture many, many years from now. Roger's doing what he did means far more to me than those wolves. Perhaps that is what the wolf was telling me...

*Roger was with me the day I learned to swallow pills. He was at our house during the week hanging wallpaper in our guest bathroom. I was pregnant, had just been told I could no longer take prenatal liquid vitamins, and I had been sitting at my kitchen table for half an hour trying to choke down the prenatal horse pill.

Every so often, I left the pill and wandered in to talk to him. He never judged me. Never asked how the swallowing was coming. We discussed wallpaper and colors. When the pill finally went down my throat - a surprise and with very little work - I danced throughout the house, cheering myself loudly. Roger just smiled and gave me a thumbs up. I like remembering that moment.

*My last recollection is time spent with him while I cooked. He came to our house for dinners when Mary Anne was traveling. Because Tom wasn't home from work yet, he'd sit at my kitchen table and watch me work. Roger He was not an idle chit chatterer. He was a great listener, offering comments now and again. I understood that by then and so I'd ask questions or I'd tell him stories. Sometimes he'd nod off for a catnap.

Not long ago, I was making spaghetti. After pouring the sauce into the pan, I added water to the jar and shook it to get out the residue of the sauce. A trick my mother taught me years ago when I bothered to pay attention.

Roger: "Interesting that you do that. My mother always did that when cooking. I didn't think anyone nowadays did things like that."

Me: "My mom also did that. You might mention this to her next time you see her. I could use some brownie points, especially her knowing I paid some attention to her when we cooked."

He smiled, and the moment was gone. But, from now on, every time I cook spaghetti, I bet I think of Roger.

I'm grateful to have known him. Grateful, he accepted me into his family with open arms - figuratively speaking - because he did it in his very Roger-like way, quietly and with his whole heart. He will be missed.