Hospice is coming...Hospice is coming...

As I sit here at tonight watching my children all sleeping together in one bed I am feeling incredibly grateful, grateful and sad (of course), sad my little ones won't get to know Poppy as I know him.

It is hard to watch someone you love go through the obvious physical discomfort but the other issues - the emotional reality of knowing your days are numbered are just weird and almost tormenting.  I want to freeze time and yet, I do not want him to suffer.  It sounds obvious doesn't it? Not so obvious.  My brain and my heart are in a constant battle.  Today Poppy decided he did not want to go back to the doctor.  This decision I completely support, but understand this decision was partly made because he really can not physically get into a car and make it into a doctors office.  I hate that part.  The fact that he has made this decision is the part I can stomach (somewhat). 

Soooo, after that decision came the really hard part...... hospice.  Hospice is so amazing and I love it but I love it for other families - you know? not my family.  My brother asked him if that is what he wanted and with a little clarification - it is what he wants.  My brother is an amazing man.  He knows what is needed and as painful as it is for him, he managed to get out that hard word out (hospice) without throwing up.  I know he is a doctor, he happens to be an oncologist no less, but this is his father.  This is the man that taught him how to ride a bike, told him about the birds and the bees.  This is his daddy.  This passage will somehow change our roles.  When both your mother and father are alive - you remain somewhat a child.  Once you lose a parent - somehow it feels like you lose a part of your childhood.  I can feel that coming.  

Well in typical Poppy fashion after everyone left - he waived his finger up in the air back in forth as if to music and sang Hospice is coming...Hospice is coming as if to the rescue.  A tad sarcastic, but still funny.  

One of the questions that comes up several times a day, is how much time does he have? Well - that is tough.  I know not long, but that does not mean he doesn't have a few months.  Today he ate a little, but we can hear more wheezing in his chest and he insists it is from his pneumonia vaccine, but I am thinking perhaps he has some fluid in his lungs from all the other yuck happening.    So days, weeks, months... really I hate not knowing and I would hate to know.  

Get a load of this...

Well here I am again - blogging.  Sometimes, when something happens in your life - you think to yourself, man I should write a book.  As if this has never happened to someone else.  I have been a single teenage mom, divorced, remarried, graduated from law school (as a single mom) dealt with infertility, dealt with addiction, lost a baby, and now I am an "advanced maternal age" mom - so all of these things I swear I could have written a book about but only because they all are things that have shaped me into who I am today....and,  Today I am embarking n a new chapter, I am losing my father to cancer and I have just finished my first week sitting by his side and it is hard.  He was diagnosed about 10 days ago with stage four colon, liver and lymphatic cancer - it is most likely also in his lungs.  We did not know about it until just now.  He was working full time up until about 10 days ago.  So I write, I am not sure where I am going because maybe this is about me, but maybe it is a bit about him, and maybe about my brother and certainly a bit about my mother.  It is a complicated  relationship and certainly a complicated journey and honestly I am NOT a writer, but as long as my mother in law doesn't read this I should be ok.  That is a little joke - she is a tad critical in the writing department.

This is my Poppy - he is my daddy and I am definitely his little girl.  This was taken about 2 months ago right after my youngest (and last - for those of you wondering) was born.  He is such an amazing grandfather.  He loves all of his grand babies so very much.  They just all have such a special place in his heart.

I will get to the title another day, but it is pretty funny.  Keep in mind I have a big Catholic family and I tell you this only because, well it will come into play.  Let me tell you a bit about Poppy - he is a big teddy bear.  He is about 6"5" - although he jokes he has lost a few inches over the years because of back surgeries.  He is absolutely known for his bad jokes and for...ahem... a special gift he has.  This gift is a very close relative of "pull my finger" which by the way is still going on even on his death bed this week.  A quick story to perhaps represent this gift.  When I was in high school, my boyfriend came to pick me and another friend of mine up to take us out one night and he brought one of our friends with him.  I was upstairs getting ready and the two guys were sitting downstairs at out little bar area talking with my father.  As I was descending into the bar area - I hear laughter and "Oh my God" and I look over at my sweet father as he is igniting his "gas" oh yes, he was.  I was in high school - I STILL hear about that even 20 something years later.  He was kind of famous for it and it was NOT a one time event.  He was still doing it when I was in law school.  I have to admit on some levels even I was impressed (when I was not mortified).  I just love him and now what I would give to have some of those days back.  I know that may be a strange way to introduce poppy and or open a blog, but that is poppy.  He was big and strong and really ALWAYS telling a joke.  I can not tell you how many times a day Poppy would call, JUST to tell me a joke and then he would hang up and call my brother and tell him the same joke or vice versa.  When Poppy got sick, he was not able to return to work and his request was that we go get his joke file out of his desk - so I did and let me just say it is a really big file.  This is a compilation of silly jokes he has been collecting since the late 70's.  Laughter is so important and I assure you he is still joking around.  He is feeling pretty yucky tonight, but somehow he manages to still muster a funny or two.  God, I am really going to miss that.