Time to get back on track

Posted by Steve | Filed under General

I have a few posts I need to jot down. It’s just hard to get motivated to bang out a long post, which is the way I prefer to do it. I might start doing shorter Twitter’ish posts in the future but I’ll try to put up real stories at least a couple time per month.

Last May I had a big trip back to Atlanta scheduled. I planned to see the folks, spend some quality time with Belle, attend a cousin’s wedding and meet up with a bunch of high school friends that I’ve reconnected with on Facebook. I was originally planning to get there on a Saturday. I decided to bump it to Friday in case Mom needed me to work in the yard Saturday morning. Good thing I did.

I got in around 9pm on Friday. My dad had been on the family farm in South Carolina. He was not feeling well so his brother drove him and they arrived around midnight. Dad had a host of old man issues – emphysema, diabetes, high blood pressure, you name it.

The next morning I helped (carried actually) him downstairs so we could take him to see his doctor. I got him downstairs and sat him in his easy chair to rest. My dad is a pretty big guy and I was flat out exhausted from carrying him. He stopped breathing and died right there in front of me, mom and my uncle.

He had been ill for a long while so I was mentally prepared and things were going to be much easier on Mom now. Needless to say the activity schedule was turned on it’s head. I still went to the wedding and a couple of my high school boys stopped by to check on us, which I really appreciated. I didn’t get to see Belle which was very disappointing.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say about that.

Permalink | November 12th, 2009

2 Responses to “Time to get back on track”

  1. so gone Says:
    November 13th, 2009 at 6:18 am

    Like I told you before, sometimes they just need things to be dealt with and see us one last time before they go. Very similar situation with both my dad’s father and my mom’s father – as in, they waited to see them both and then they were gone. I’m still very sorry for your loss, but I’m glad you were able to see him before he passed.

  2. Steve Says:
    November 13th, 2009 at 11:58 am

    I believe you’re right. The first thing he said as he was getting out of the car was “I need to see my son and daughter”. He had not looked up to see me standing there at that point. :)