This school year has been one of the nuttiest on record, and I only
had ONE STUDENT. Pop over here to read about the crazy…
Here’s the list:
August/September: School starts during lots of wedding planning and
parties.
October: WEDDING!!!
November: Host Thanksgiving
December: Hot water heater disaster, and so much Christmasing
January: Horrid colds for the whole family, surgery for me, pipe
burst causing water disaster #2
February: Surgery recovery for me while we fix and put the game
room back together from water disaster #2.
March: Gunnar and Kaytlin get engaged, HUGE party at my house.
I mentioned in that last blog post that things should slow down a
bit and I just had to do the end of year senior stuff. Yeah. God laughed at that
and threw me a curve ball.
In April Gunnar finished up his Paramedics class and took and
passed his National Registry test. He’s now officially a Medic! He worked SO hard
for this and we’re so proud of his accomplishment! Kaytlin, who was in the same
class he was, also passed and is also now officially a Medic. I very much
wanted to throw a giant party to celebrate their accomplishment but that was
not too happen. Things got a bit out of hand around here right about that time.
April is historically all about Show Tunes (an extra curricular
activity Annika is part of through our homeschooling co op.) It was her final
Show Tunes play. The class put on Thoroughly Modern Milly and Annika had the part of Miss Dorothy. She did
an amazing job of course and I may have cried a little at the final scene. It
is usually a very, very busy time with Annika at late night rehearsals (they don’t
mess around, y’all. This is a production.)
But things hit turbo the week all the late night rehearsals began, because my dad got sick.
On Thursday morning I got a call while I was on my way to teach my
classes at co op telling me that they’d taken him via ambulance to the ER. He’d
been choking on his food. I quickly called my administrator and told her I was
not coming. She scrambled and got someone to cover me so I could head straight
to the ER. I am so grateful for my friends at co op for jumping in and handling
things for me so I could go be with my dad.
When I got to the ER he was so very altered. I’d just been to see
him a few days prior and he’d been his normal self. He has been in the final
stages Alzheimer’s disease for a year or so, so his ‘normal’ was nonverbal, but
responsive. At the ER he was completely non responsive except to pain stimuli.
It was so sad to see.
They admitted him and Friday was a day of tests. On Friday night
his heart became erratic and they put him on meds to stabilize that. By late
Friday night we knew we were nearing the end. It turns out he’d been aspirating
about 40 to 60 percent of his food and had developed aspiration pneumonia. He
was also septic. The Sepsis was affecting his heart. We were at the end.
It was a terribly hard time. It was now Saturday and I’d been at
the hospital pretty much straight since Thursday morning. I did come home to sleep
for a few hours at night, but other that that I’d been at the hospital and 100%
unavailable for my family or anyone else. Annika’s final Opening Night was in a
few days and my dad was dying. I was missing her important senior milestones,
but I could not leave my dad. It was terribly hard.
By Saturday afternoon he’d been put on hospice. We just waited. We
stayed at the hospital and talked to him, I read to him, held his hand, talked to
the doctors and nurses as they came and went. Dave and the kids all came up and spent
time with me during the day to keep me company, my mom and sister also were
there, and other family members. Time just stopped really, while we watched my
dad live out his final days.
On Wednesday night at 2:26 am my dad took his final breath. Thursday
I had my class covered again by friends at co op so Dave and I could make my
dad’s arrangements. We spent the day going from funeral homes, to cemeteries,
to his memory care unit to clean out his things, to the florist etc.
On Monday night Annika had her opening night and I was able to
attend. This week I spent handling my dad’s funeral details and attending
Annika’s final performances. It was certainly not how I expected things to go.
It was surreal to be laughing at Annika’s antics on stage in the evenings after
spending the days working on the details of dad’s memorial service. Even the placement of these photos on the blog feels so odd. Photos of Annika having a grand old time in her fun, silly play among the paragraphs about my dad's passing and funeral. It seems odd and not right, disrespectful somehow, but that's exactly how it felt to live it.
The following Friday was my dad’s service. It was a nice service.
It was small, out at the National Cemetery. He had military honors and the bugler
played Taps. I think he would have been pleased.
There was not really a lot of time to think too much about my dad’s
passing or really process it even. I know this will catch up with me soon. But
next up was May. In May there is no time for mourning or reflecting. May is
always a crazy month and when you have a senior, it’s even crazier.
I had stressed out kids taking make or break finals, kids who
are grieving over the loss of a grandfather. There were senior honors banquets,
and last days, and final good byes and finally…Graduation and the graduation
party. Annika and her cousins Martyn and Ian have been at the same co op since
they were in elementary school. They’ve been in the same Sunday schools all the
way through. And now they’re graduating together.
The party was a rousing success. I think (hope) they felt loved and
celebrated. I won’t go into the graduation and the party too much here, that’s
going to need its own post.
The Sunday after the graduation and party I did not leave the
house. Heck, I did not get out of my PJs! I rested with my feet up!
Time marches on. It’s filled to the brim with the busyness of my
people. For the first time in 21 years I will not be spending the summer
preparing for fall homeschooling and teaching at co op. I’m officially retired.
Instead I will be spending the summer going through 21 years of curriculum and
downsizing our bookshelves and dealing with my dad’s estate, or what’s left of
it.
It’s a time of transition here at our home. Gunnar will be moving
out this summer. We’ll be redecorating and cleaning out the girls’ rooms
turning them from homeschooled kid’s rooms to something more appropriate for busy
college students who need a quiet place to study.
Last school year did not look one bit like I thought it would. Not
one bit. It was full of lasts and good byes and heartache, but also joy and happiness
and such promise for the future. I’m so incredibly proud of my kids and what they
have accomplished, but mostly of who they are. Who they are choosing to be.
They’re awesome human beings and I would want to know them and be friends with
them even if they were not my children. That’s how amazing they are.
I’d like to take the credit for that, but I do not deserve it. Yes,
I did my best as a parent and I did some things right and some things wrong,
but they’re all adults now. They chose who they want to be. They chose every
day to follow God’s desire for them or not. It’s that simple. They are choosing
to be men and women of God and I am so very humbled and grateful God gave me
these 4 to call my children.
I don’t know where the next few years will take me. There is a
giant question mark there, but I am not worried. I know God has a plan for me
and I’m excited to see what it will be.
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