When Life Meets Lists

 I started Friday strong.  I made a few lists.  One of them called "House Projects 2011" that's well over a page long.  Another for my groceries.  Another with my schedule for this week.  And one with the meals I could make based on the groceries I had purchased.  I had my coupons sorted and ready to go.  I knew what I needed for my different errands around town.  I had plans to get the Christmas decorations down, to do the laundry, and to do some serious work in baby boy's room.

 

And all that went awry.

 

Friday night, Andy's mom called to say that they were rushing Grandpa to the hospital, and that things weren't looking good.  By Saturday morning, the diagnosis was clear: renal failure.  His last coherent thoughts and words were to tell the doctor that he didn't want to just exist, and that he's been existing and not living for a while now.  That pretty much settled it.  He was transferred to a hospice center nearby in the middle of the night.  Andy's dad called Saturday morning to tell us that if we wanted our chance to say good-bye, we needed to get to Indianapolis.

 

So we went.  And we stayed.

 

We spent Saturday in the hospice center.  We spent Sunday in the hospice center.  We were with Andy's family….his grandpa was surrounded.  One son had sent his children back to California while he and his wife stayed behind.  A daughter reached her home in DC and turned around to come back.  Nearly all of the grandkids have been to Indy in the last week, and had their chance to see him.  We left yesterday, a heaviness in our hearts, realizing that we'll never see his grandpa alive again. 

 

That's a hard pill to swallow.

 

So now we're home.  Faking normal.  Meals will be made.  Dishes will be done.  But all with the knowledge that things aren't normal.  They aren't okay.  The lists aren't going to get finished this week.  And that's okay.

 

Because instead, our hearts are sitting in that hospice center with the rest of the family sitting vigil.  We're thinking about grandpa, laughing at the memories.  Realizing that his funeral will be a celebration of a life well-lived.  Feeling sad as we realize that we'll never get to walk in his patio door and hear him say, "Well hello there" in the way that only he does.  It'll be a week spent waiting.  Waiting for the sad, the inevitable.