Two Years Later

Do you ever have those moments when you run into a friend you haven’t seen in years and when you’re updating each other on what has been going on in your lives, you stop and think “no way can your kids be that old already!”  I feel this happens to me often.  Although I have seen the years fly by and my children have birthdays, I forget that other people have birthdays at the same rate.

The same can be said about our parents.  For many years I failed to realize that our parents age as well.  Sometimes at an even faster rate.  This realization has really hit me hard over the last couple years.  My parents are aging.  There will come a day when I can’t text or call my mom every day, when my dad will stop making strawberry jam and I will have to buy store bought.  This is so incredibly hard for me to grasp some times.

Two years ago, on December 20th, 2016 my dad was hospitalized.   He had been in excruciating pain throughout the night and finally woke my mom up in the early morning and requested she take him to the ER.  This is not like my dad as the last place he ever wants to go is to the hospital.  The rest of this story is on his Caring Bridge site:  www.caringbridge.org/visit/paulwray

For two years he has been battling one health condition after another.  Two years ago, we had to decide to risk taking him back to surgery, knowing his condition was very guarded.  These days are so ingrained in my memory  and I will never forget the specifics from those very difficult days.  What’s even more challenging is this happened over the holidays.  Dad had his second surgery on Christmas Eve. We sat in the surgical waiting room in the early evening, trying to watch a Christmas Story, trying to converse with each other, when really our minds just couldn’t focus. We had no idea what the surgeon was going to say to us when he walked into that room.

Fast forward to the last 4 months.  Dad has had multiple lengthy hospitalizations and most recently I have come to the realization that this may be the end.  My mom, brother and I have had to make some difficult decisions recently.

I’m struggling with so many things right now.  I hate seeing him suffer and it is very hard watching my mom sit all day long in a hospital room knowing that the man next to her is not the same person she married.  It has been an exhausting journey for all of us.

I struggle with how I am going to explain to my children that their Papa has passed. Yesterday we all visited him in the hospital and the kids gave him their homemade Valentine’s Day cards.  I did brace them during the trip there that Papa was very sick.  I haven’t explained to them yet that his days here with us are limited.  Lauren is still getting over our cat that passed last July.  I have no idea how they are going to handle this.  My heart aches knowing they will not continue to make memories with him.

We feel so blessed that we have had the last two years. These next days/weeks will likely be the hardest I have ever faced but I feel at peace hearing my dad say that he had a “good life.”