Madness In My Method

I hate being in mourning. It just means crying myself to sleep on random nights, even after having a really nice evening watching happy, upbeat movies. I wish my mind could stay thinking about the book by which I'm trying to lull myself instead of roaming off to where I do not wish it to go.

They are not foreseeing my grandmother lasting through tonight. I've already made arrangements to be off from work Wed-Fri. My plans to be social on Wed are going out the door.

Simultaneously, my nephew should be coming home hopefully today or tomorrow. He's clinically depressed and going to be coming home to a house in mourning.

I'm not allowed to be an emotional mess, because I'm the emotional backbone for a lot of family members. But I have a feeling I'll be a mess come shortly.

I faced the loss of a friendship today that has me in tears. I really just want to go and curl up into a ball and cry.

I called the house to see if my mom might want to go out with me to the Mongolian Grill. I could really use the company.

I found out that my grandmother's hospice was denied, because although she is terminal, can't even hold a water bottle on her own because of her medications, and is in too much pain to move, she is not "critical". The home health nurse is only getting paid for 3 hours a day, and is even volunteering extra time beyond that, sort of, because she keeps flaking out even on her regular schedule because of her own scheduling conflicts. In the meantime, I just found out that my mom has been staying over there since Friday - just after her own back shots were administered, which means she's trying to take care of my grandmother all on her own while trying to keep herself from having to get back surgery again.

My sister can't help, because she and BD2 have to go to NA meetings. That leaves dad watching the three boys.

Mom wants me to come out and see my grandmother "soon, like really soon", so I am going to go over and relieve her for a couple of hours until either my flaky sister or the flaky nurse gets there. Dealing with one loss is painful enough as it is, but to have to also face my grandmother's impending death at the same time - help me.

I have friends that this is overly fitting for.

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The husband-owner of our company passed away last night after a year-long battle with brain cancer. He was a jolly man, full of intriguing thoughts and comments and a rare insightful look into the human spirit. To many he was a father figure whom he took under his wing, and for that my heart goes out to those who I know are aching. For the most part I've kept my thoughts on matters at hand so as to stave off the teary-eye and keep my composure, but every so often you might catch me taking a little sniffle, or a full cry as the current case may be.

I regret that he did not have the chance to see the grand transformation of his recently upgraded shop, but I know that he had time to imagine it. Those rooms and those halls will continue on in his name, but I feel the presence of a hole somewhere in the heart of the place at the moment.

I will greatly miss him.

R.I.P. Bruce

Grandpa passed away this evening. His suffering is over and that makes me happy.

Hopefully come spring my family will be able to spread both of my dad's parents' ashes together in Colorado as per their wishes. I hope that many of my dad's side of the family will be able to go. We don't have family reunions and rarely have all three of my grandparents' sons been together in the same state at the same time, let alone the grandkids. I still have two cousins I've never met in person.

I was able to wish Grandma my farewells as we turned off the oxygen. Within 15 minutes she had passed on around 10am this morning. It wasn't pneumonia as the doctors originally thought. She was simply worn and tired. It was just her time.

She was able to see one of her sons and his family from Oregon last week, and Mom really believes that she bided her time for their visit.

The hardest part was telling Grandpa as he was in no condition to be transported to the hospital for the final moments. My father got out two sentences before my grandfather broke down crying. We were already planning for him to most likely not be with us come the beginning of the year. It may possibly be sooner than that.

During this all, my sister had to take my nephew to the doctor for what they first thought was a broken ankle. My dad then took them to see the foot specialist who said it was just a bruised tendon, but it was just one more thing on the family plate to deal with today.

My father had been up since 5am yesterday morning, first for a day's work and then seeing to the care of his mother. I think he wanted to make sure he was there for his own grandson as well, so he volunteered to take him to the specialist. He's a good man, and he loves his family so.

Funeral home plans for my grandmother are in conjunction with their previously made arrangements. My father will meet with them tomorrow to finalize it, and her remains shall be cremated. The same arrangements are set for my grandfather, and with both of their ashes my parents at the least will plan a vacation to Colorado to spread their ashes.

My car is back in the shop again for the same phantom over-heating-but-not-really-overheating-but-instead-over-revving issue. My dad's mustang is in the shop to get inspected. My sister's car that my dad owns but my mom is paying for and that my grandmother has been driving is now in my possession so that I can still get around town while my car is in the shop. My dad is driving my mom's car and my mom is driving my dad's truck in order to take back some picnic tables in the back of it, and all of this is driving me nuts.

My sister showed back up at my parents' house last night after being AWOL for 1-2 months. So the boys have their mom back home if at least for a short while. We really wish she would just turn herself in and get her prison time served and over and done with.

I think I may have lost my favorite black sweater yesterday. Possibilities are: It fell off my waist inside one of the gifts shops while I was too busy looking at pretty, shiny things. It fell off while walking to the car. I left it in the car, but I don't completely recall having it when I loaded into the car. I left it at Sol's Taco Lounge after dinner. It fell off while walking to my car after being dropped off from dinner. I've called all of the usual lost-n-found suspects, but the sweater has not yet been located. This makes me a sad kitty. Obviously I'll survive, but it really does suck to loose something that you absolutely love and wear almost every day.

But finding out that there may be an issue with my sister and nephews attending my graduation is disheartening. Mom wasn't able to go into detail because my sister was in the room. I guess I'll find out for sure what's going on later. I'm unfortunately used to hearing otherwise bad news when it comes to my sister, so I'm not really having much of an emotional response to it, but this really does suck ass if they are not going to be able to go.

If nothing else, I really would like for the boys to see that there are positive things that can happen in the world. The youngest one might not remember it, but I know the oldest one is old enough that it will make a lasting impression on him. If there were two boys in the world that needed a little bit of positive in their lives it's them. For all I know they will still be able to attend and this semi-rant is for naught. Either way, even just the prospect of them not attending yanks a little too deep inside.