Hey, No fair! that wasn’t 6 months!
At the end of July we found out that TheWife’s Step father was given six months to live. He requested a family party, to get one more chance to see everybody which we had in August. But somwhere we still kind of thought that he would be well enough to see still for one more Christmas. Maybe it was hoping against hope. But we certainly thought we more time.
TheWife and LatteGirl were supposed to go down for a visit last weekend, but life got in the way, and they decided to reschedule for a couple of weeks later. We were SURE we have more time, and this was no big deal.
We were wrong.
The phone rang at 11:45 pm last night. It sounds cliche, but when the phone rings at that hour, it is never good news. And of course in this case that held true. We knew he was brought into the hospital earlier in the day when he began spitting up blood. Denial once again set in, I suppose, and we believed (wished?) that it was just an episode, and he would be getting some medication and returning home.
It wasn’t to be, and when that phone call came late at night, I knew it as I walked over to pick it up. I looked at the caller id and saw my mother-in-laws phone number, and any last ditch thoughts of it being something else disappeared. I steeled myself, and answered. It went just as you would expect such situations to go.
This is not going to be easy to break to LatteGirl. She hasn’t seen much of him or my mother-in-law lately, but she has always had a soft spot for him. I have always said that she could consider herself lucky, in that while most people have two grandfathers, as nice as he was to her, she basically has (uh… had) three. However, now of course that also means that this is the second of three times we will have to deal with explaining this to her.
He wasn’t always well liked, particularly by TheWife and her sisters, but over the years he mellowed, they mellowed and he eventually fit into the family quite nicely, and was liked by everyone.
He will be missed.
Knock, Knock, Knockin’ …
Death and dying is a subject I have broached more than I care to admit on this blog. My father’s passing, dealing with LatteGirl and her understanding (or lack of) on the matter, my mother’s tenous health, an uncle that had to be placed into an “induced coma” because of the pain (but somehow managed to turn it around and survive it).
Death for me has come, for lack of a better word, “easy” to some degree. From the time I was 9 through about 13 I spent more time in funeral homes than I think most people should have to for their entire lives. It seemed at the time that I was back at the one place that both sides of the family used as their “regular” funeral home. By the time the “older generation” was done dropping like flies, I knew the place intimately. The smoking lounge (hey this was the late 70′s early 80′s and yes you could actually still smoke indoors), where they stored extra boxes of tissues, where the office was, the water cooler, which rooms were the bigger ones, how many displays it actually took to make a flower car look full, and so on.
However, none of that prepared me for what I was to face on the first day of our vacation, in which we had to make a detour to my in-laws for a family reunion, hastily put together when it was discovered that my step-father-in-law has lung and kidney cancer (just found out about the kidney part).
This may have been the single most uncomfortable event I have ever attended. The tension was amazingly palpable as everybody was keenly aware, but very few were willing to mention that big pink elephant in the middle of the room. The only way I can describe it, would be attending a funeral repast, and the deceased sitting there dining with you. Oh, my step-father-in-law was acting cheerful enough, and generally smiled most of the time. But you knew he didn’t look quite “right,” not sick per se, but certainly frail for a man that has never looked that way before.
Conversations were guarded, and many abruptly ended when talks of things like “future plans” accidentally came up, presumably people feeling (and probably rightfully so) that it was rude to talk about what you plan to do “next year” when you are at a party for a man that may not see the end of this one.
We did not (at their request), inform LatteGirl of “Pops” condition. Which was probably a smart move with her being as over-sensitive as she is. However this was also cause for some confusion for her later. Since we still needed to get to the Poconos and check in, we were the first ones to leave. It was at this point that some of the masks started to drop. Tears were shed as who knew when or if we would ever have an opportunity to see him again. Of course LatteGirl, without knowledge as to why people were crying, was quite confounded by it all. She couldn’t understand why people were sad that we were going on vacation.
TheWife has never been particularly close with her step father (she and her sisters all wore black when their mother married him), but he is a jovial and likable fellow (particularly now when he is sober), and a lot of bitterness is now of course being overlooked, and I guess, it is tough to hate somebody who you are watching slowly die. (Well, I can think of a few cases where I could hold my anger but that is for a different day and post).
I don’t know that there was any way to make this any less uncomfortable, or if I had to do it all over again that I would (or could) do anything different. I don’t know what if anything we should do now. All I know for sure, is no matter how confident I feel that I have “seen it all”… something will come along to prove me wrong.
Will work for advise
OK, so I know I am not the only person who has had to face the following situation, so I could really use some advise on dealing with the situation. You see, up until now, I have been “fortunate” in that dealing with the death of a friend or a family member up to this point has been relatively simple.
I have my mother, and my uncle, who when confronted with death have somehow managed to beat it back and lived well beyond even many doctors expectations. And then on the other side, normally when dealing with death it has been a relatively short ride from “fine” to “ill” to “deceased.” While is may sound cruel in some ways (I did call it “fortunate” earlier), the effects on those left behind tend to be less dramatic.
I found out over the weekend that TheWife’s step father was diagnosed with lung cancer. But apparently this was overlooked by both himself and his doctors for so long, that not only is the lung cancer at an advanced stage, it has already metastasized to other parts of his body. (I have a long rant I am working on as to why I believe this happened, but I will save that for another day).
Now of course, is it possible for him to beat the odds? Sure, but with lung cancer, and the fact that it has already spread, it is certainly not looking good at this point, and his prognosis at this point is 6 – 9 months.
My mother-in-law had already arranged a family get together, and plans to keep it, so to me it feels like we are having a wake for the poor guy while he is still alive. To say, I am uncomfortable would be an understatement.
I just don’t know what to do or say with anybody in this situation. TheWife is still in a bit of shock, and trying to “distance herself” right now to keep her wits about her and to be able to start planning ahead. But I don’t know what to say to her. Or to my mother-in-law. I don’t know how much his illness is affecting his outward appearance, so I can’t even decide (thank goodness I have a bit of time to do so) what if anything I should say to LatteGirl. Being at a loss for words is not something I am used to suffering from, but right now, I’m stumped.
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