life: memorial tattoos

that life is what happens while you are making other plans?

ya. life....

it comes at you sometimes from a million different directions....

pulling you in like an undertow, while you hold your breath while trying to swim to the surface... & then sometimes, if you are unlucky enough, something pulls you back under before you ever get to the top.

last week, about oh.. an hour after i posted that last blog.. we got a phone call from my husband's mother in georgia letting us know his grandfather had passed away.

it's been a long time coming. he's been on dialysis for about 8 years. life has been hard & long for him the last decade, i imagine.

the pain for my husband & his family though, was not any less given his suffering. i suppose we are all selfish creatures.. we want the people we love around forever. i know i do. i'm just grateful (as i know his family is as well) that his suffering is over.

pit stop

it was a hard shock on the hubs. just earlier in the day his mom had told him his grandfather was his old self, taking stabs at nurses & family.. & eating a cheeseburger. the week before had been a rocky one.. with his blood pressure dipping seriously low... and a very serious infection in not one, but two ports.

hanging out in the hotel room

so we spent the last week in georgia. and honestly, even though we celebrated our 11th anniversary, driving home from the trip saturday... i feel like i never knew his grandfather. not really.

occupied

he was already suffering when i came into the family, and shortly after we were married the downward spiral began. i saw him as a quiet man, sad at the way life had turned on him, and mad at his body's inability to do what his mind still was very clearly wanting to do. he had to give up his freedom. no driving. no fishing. his diet constantly monitored.

snuggled sleeper

but what i found out this week was that he was very much a different person. (i suppose illness does that to you, so i shouldn't be surprised)

hubs first tattoo... matching tattoo's for pa's 3 sons

the hubs has told me enough stories, that i should have known he was full of life.. but i guess the things he told me ended up going out like random facts that you hear & remember, but just sort & store & never really digest.

he played the guitar, and according to several people, had a wonderful singing voice. i never heard him sing. a lifetime ago, he had his own radio show. he served in the military, and was extremely proud of the time he served our country. he was a fisherman. hearing my husband tell stories of his grandfather fishing never ceases to make me smile, and that smile spread to every face present at his funeral, when they recounted that he couldn't go fishing without managing to slip and fall in. every. single. time. the memory made everyone laugh.

pa's hook will forever go in the water first

and it made me sad. because i didn't know that person. because my sons will never know that person.

sacked out at DQ

it made me sad, because he was the only father that my husband ever knew. i may not have known him... but i have always been incredibly grateful at the fact that he raised my husband to be the man he is today. i respect him more than words are fit to convey, and this is why rance is named for him. (pa's name was clarence, but i just couldn't lay that on a baby.. so we just hijacked the last part of his name.) i am EXTREMELY proud that my son was named for him... and it dawned on us that our son is the ONLY family member named in honor of him.

florida.

and that's life... it changes on you in an instant.

xo-k

ps. i left my camera at home thinking that i just couldn't imagine why i would need it... but i tried to capture some moments i wanted to remember with the 'tubo' app on my cellphone... reminders that life does go on.. and that life is in the simple things that at the end mean everything..

and not that i needed the reminder to know what's best... but i'm going to make a concerted effort to only be on the computer while the dude is at school (he started yesterday) or while the babe is napping, or at night. so if the posting is random, that's why :)