Precious Final Moments With Grampa

There is a room in grampa and grama’s house that we call the “fireplace room.”  It is on the lower level of the house and has a fantastic wood burning fireplace.  We have had a lot of family get-togethers, cook-outs, holidays and all sorts of good times in that room.  Grampa built it as an addition to the house quite a few years back (maybe 15ish years ago).  That’s where I’m writing from today.

 

Yesterday morning, my grampa, one of the most special people I will ever have the pleasure of knowing, passed away.  He had been in bad health for over two years and it was finally his time to be at peace.  I got the call the day before that I really needed to come and see him.  That was on Friday around noon.  I immediately packed up at the office, got in the car and headed out towards the nursing home.  It is an hour-long drive so I had some time to send out some texts and make some calls to a couple of close friends. 

I arrived and was the only one there with him which I knew would be a really nice one on one time with him.  My uncle had just left shortly before I got there and would return later on.  The nurses brought in a cart with lemonade, iced tea and some snacks for any visitors who came.  I knew then that this was definitely not a promising sign.  A few nurses came in and talked with me, telling me this was the end this time.  They had no way of saying how long it would be, but almost definitely not more than a few days. 

He woke up briefly when I came in and said, “Hi Ashley.  Turn that heat down.”  So I quickly complied and turned the heat down and cracked the window to get some fresh, cool air in the room.  It was an odd request since he is normally chilly, but I didn’t question it. 

I sat a wheelchair next to grampa’s bed and grabbed a pillow from the couch.  I put the pillow on the bed rail, held his hand and fell asleep there by his side.

I’m not sure how long I slept, but a couple of nurses woke me up when they came in to give him his medicine and change the dressings on his legs.  It was then that we found out we couldn’t get him to wake up.  He was still breathing and his vitals were relatively stable, but nothing would get him to come around. 

A hospice nurse who had taken care of him in the past came by to visit and talked me through what I could expect and also gave me a booklet with a section circled that was labeled, “Hours to one – two days.”  I didn’t think I needed or wanted to read it, but I did eventually read it and was glad I did.

After a while, my uncle and cousin came in.  Shortly after, grama came in.  She didn’t know what was going on yet, but she sure knew when she walked into the room and looked at all of us.

We had a few other visitors as the afternoon wore on including more of my cousins and my aunt.  Around 7:00, grama left to go home and get some rest.  I (in true Ashley fashion) refused to leave.  One of my wonderful friends went to my house, packed me a bag with three days’ worth of clothing and stuff and drove it all the way out to the nursing home for me.  I had absolutely no intention of leaving that nursing home until grampa took his last breath.  My friend who brought my things said, “I pity the person who tries to get you to leave.”

I sat up with grampa for a while, just holding his hand and talking to him now and then even though he couldn’t respond, telling him that I loved him and wouldn’t leave him.

I made a bed on the little loveseat in the room and slept well for three hours at a time.   He was to have a dose of morphine for the immense pain he was in every three hours.  I set alarms on my phone to go off every three hours to make sure the nurses didn’t forget.  They wouldn’t have forgotten, but I was determined to be on top of making sure he was as comfortable as possible. 

During one medicine wake up, he roused a bit, which made me clumsily jump up from my makeshift bed to get by his bedside.  I said, “Hi grampa.”  And he replied, “Hi Ashley.”  Throughout the night, he had a few more moments like this where he could get out a word or two.  It was obvious he wanted to speak more, but he just couldn’t. 

I woke up for his 6:00am dose of morphine and only lightly dozed after that.  By 7:30am I started wondering if I should get up or go back to sleep until 9:00.  I knew it would be a long day regardless of what happened so I reasoned that sleeping until 9:00 was a good idea.  Of course, my heart overruled my reason and I felt like I should get up and clean up the room in case any visitors began to come around 9:00. So I did.  I busied myself with cleaning the room up and the nursing home brought by a nice breakfast around 8:00.

Grampa was pretty active in the morning.  He spoke a few full sentences.  Not about anything in particular, but he spoke and was fairly aware.  In the book the hospice nurse had given me, it said that often times a person will have a surge of energy just before they pass.  I knew this must be it.  I texted my uncle and let him know.  I didn’t know if this meant there were minutes or a day or what, but I recognized this was a change.

I started to sit down in the recliner next to the bed and read, but something prompted me to go sit next to grampa and pay attention to him.  I don’t know if he awakened a bit or if he was coughing or what it was.  I really have no idea.  I was still only half awake, but I went to sit by him.  I sat by his side and held his hand and once again told him how much I loved him and that I wouldn’t leave him.  As minutes went by, it crossed my mind to say that over and over, but my heart told me to just be quiet and treasure the moment.  He already knew. 

As I watched him, there came a moment that I knew was going to be his last.  I had a brief moment of denial and question, but as I listened to his slowing breath and watched his face, I was certain.  I felt the tears begin to fall down my face and the feeling of sorrow creep in as I watched his chest rise and fall for the last time and his eyes completely close.  I sat for a few moments in sheer amazement before putting my head on his chest and checking for a pulse for confirmation.  When I knew for sure there was nothing, I looked at the clock and noted the time, 8:43am. 

I remember sobbing and gasping and continuing to hold his hand.  I remember my tears soaking in to his hospital gown as I cried with my head on his chest.  I remember standing up and pacing back and forth while running my fingers through my hair, then pulling my hair.  I remember grabbing hold of the chair and bed to get myself to stand still.  I remember simply not knowing what do or how to handle so many emotions all at once.  Most of all, I remember how thankful I felt and I remember saying it out loud in between sobs.  Ever since he has been in bad health, I’ve known that I wanted more than anything in the world to be there with him when he passed away.  I was so thankful I was there, holding his hand and watching him as he let go of life. 

I finally sat down beside him once more and stilled my body.  I took hold of his hand and quickly realized that his body had such little relevance to me.  It was an incredible and unexpected revelation.  I really thought I would want to remain close to his body for a long time, but it must be because I watched him let go that my heart knew with absolute certainty, he was far more with me in my heart than physically in that room.  It was a surprise, but a relief.  Everything suddenly felt so peaceful, so ok.  I was still hurting and sad, but much more calm and just truly ok. 

So now, 37 hours have passed without my grampa, but I’ve found a moment of solitude here in grampa’s favorite room, the fireplace room.  It has been snowing for a couple of hours and there was no firewood, so I picked up almost every fallen branch in the yard and broke them down into pieces that would fit in the fireplace to heat the room.  As I was picking up the branches and slamming my foot down on some of the bigger ones, essentially just making a fool of myself trying to break branches that were far too big for my strength and I realized that if grampa was watching me from heaven right then, he was probably laughing at me.  I’ve had to get up a few times while writing this and bring armloads of branches in just to keep it going, but like so much else, it just feels ok.  I’m sure grampa’s awfully happy I’m staying warm by a fire on this snowy evening, here in his room, the one he built with so much love.

Homemade Thrill Ride

One day, in my early teen years my friends got a couple of snow mobiles.  The first time we got enough snow to try out the new toys my immediate thought was, "we could do some high-speed sledding if we tie some ski rope to these things."  So I went home and grabbed a ski rope and a tube sled and then directed one of the girls to get on the tube while I took the driver's seat.  

We went to an open lot on the other side of the neighborhood and I wish I had a picture of this lot for you.  It was probably less than an acre and there were a couple of obstacles.  On one side there was a little creek with banks that dropped probably 5'-6' down to the water.  On the other side there were one or two small trees.  Other than that, just a nice little space for us to ride around in circles. 

It didn't take long for me to figure out how to really get on the gas and maintain a higher speed as I made the loop.  Of course, as I gained speed I had to make wider loops.  Before long my friend was no longer on the tube and found her as I came back around on the next loop.  Poor girl, I had smacked her straight into the tree.  

After determining she probably didn't have any broken bones, it was decided that what was most important was to keep her awake in case she had a concussion.  So we got the snowmobiles back home and bribed her not to tell the parents by buying her lunch at Taco Bell.  Then we pumped her full of Mountain Dew  to make sure she wouldn't fall asleep and we were free and clear of trouble!  

Good times.

So let's advance to 2013... Yesterday at half past noon, my phone rang and it was a friend of mine asking me if I thought we could tow a sled behind his four wheeler.  

Heeheeheehee

Boy I'm telling you I hopped out of that bed so quick and found some winter gear to go play in the snow.  

I got over there and he didn't have ski rope, but he had a really long rope and some carabiners.  We made it work.  

Unbeknownst to me, he has a racing quad, not a four wheel drive quad (I didn't know there was such a thing as a quad that wasn't four wheel drive).  Whenever he tried to get the thing to go, the back tires would send snow and then mud flying high in the air trying desperately to get enough grip to move forward.  

Once we got it moving I grabbed hold of the rope, hopped on the tube and we started flying across the field.  There was so much snow in my face I couldn't see a thing, but I was having a blast.  Next thing I knew, I felt a bump followed by the feeling of flying through the air and finally hitting the ground.  I immediately felt water soaking through my Carhartts and looked down to find myself sitting in a giant mud hole.  I couldn't think of anything else to do except laugh hysterically and hop back on.

The tube started loosing air after that so we tried another type of sled that really didn't work out.  I was flipping off of it as soon as we started to move each time.  I finally figured out that if I hung on to the rope after I flipped off, I could just let the quad drag me on my belly across the ground.  Of course that also ended up a muddy mess when the downward force of me hanging on so low behind it caused the back end of the quad to sink again.

It was a good day.

Mr. Vance & Pearl Harbor

This is a post from my "diary" that I wrote earlier this year.  It's about a long conversation I had with a man who's known me all my life.  He was at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.  There are some great insights to his point of view on the day and his life.  ENJOY!


(Written October 21, 2012)
I went into grandma's house to return the grinder I had borrowed to work on the bench.  Grama wasn't home so I assumed she had gone in to the nursing home to visit grampa.  So I put the grinder back in the tractor room and headed back out.  When I came back out into the garage, I noticed a red SUV coming down the road and I just knew it was going to come to the house.  Alas, it did.  A lady got out and said hi and asked if I remembered her.  Hmmm... a sixty-ish year old woman at the lake... could be anybody.  lol.  I told her I didn't and found out she was a camper for many years down there.

Anyway, she pointed up to the top of the road near the gates to the entrance and said, "that's Norman Vance up there."  I looked and saw his minivan at an odd angle and stopped.  My first thought was that he had wrecked into the rocks or gates up there.  Maybe he misjudged the turn a bit.  The man is 91 years old.  It certainly wouldn't be a stretch to think that.  It turned out his vehicle was having fits.  This lady had run in to him in town and followed him home because of his car trouble.

She and I walked up the hill with the plan of pushing it back, getting it straight, putting it in neutral and rolling down the hill.  Well, we got it back to his house and all three of us stood there talking for a short time.  The lady then said she wanted to drive around the property and just see what it's like now as she hadn't been back in a long time.  That left Mr. Vance and I alone.  He started talking and didn't stop for an hour.  It was wonderful.  That's the most I've ever talked to him and was so thankful for the opportunity.  I am hoping I can remember most of what he said and record it here.

He told me he remembers when I was just a baby.  He remembers my dad coming up to him and saying, "I've got something to show you..."  It turned out to be a baby!  It was me.

He told me how he and Mary (his wife who passed away at least 15 years ago) lived down at the lake before grampa and grama bought it.  They were getting ready to move because they didn't care for the property owners.  But when they heard there was going to be a new owner, they decided to stay a while and see how it went.  They really liked living there, so they were happy with grampa and grama as the new owners.  He moved out there when he was 50 years old.

He remembers when he was building his garage and had ordered the concrete to lay the pad for it.  My mom and dad were living in the house just down the gravel road at that time.  Dad saw him out there and came down and said, "I'll help you with that."  And he got right to work on the concrete.  Mr. Vance said he tried to help, but he thinks he might have been in dad's way.  He tried to pay dad for it, but dad refused.  He even tried to get the money to him by giving it to a girl that lived down there and having her take it over to dad.  Dad sent that girl right back to Mr. Vance with his check and told him to keep it.

He told me that one day, when mom and dad and I still lived down there, he remembered seeing me (I had to be less than 3 years old) running down the road and my mom screaming at me and running way behind me.  She was telling me to get back to her.  And I kept yelling back, "I'm gonna go see my grama!"  Mr. Vance said I made it to grama's house before she ever caught up to me.  He said, "I never did find out how that turned out when she got over to your grandma's house."  Sounds like not much has changed over the years.  Mom tells me what to do (or what not to do) and I ignore it.  lol

He told me about all kinds of jobs he had and bands he played in.  Almost all of them involved a guy named Carter.  He was in so many bands.  I have heard him play guitar and know how talented he is.  I had no idea he had such a history of playing in bands like that though.  A couple of jobs that stick out in my mind that he did were managing Carter's paint store and being a milk man.

He told me about how my cousin sold him a picnic table once when she was working at Marsh.  He said she told him all about it and that it was on sale.  She worked hard to convinced him that he should buy it.  He went home and looked at his back porch and realized that she was right.  He really did need that table.  So he went back into town and bought it.

Mr. Vance was in the Navy for six years.  He told me so much about that period in his life.  I hope I can record it fairly accurately.  Some of the stuff he was talking about I didn't fully understand.  Must be Navy stuff.  haha.  He must have really loved that time in his life.  He said he wished he would have stayed in the Navy.  His wife really didn't want him to though.

He told me lots of stories of being ornery with his shipmates.  I'd love to share those stories, but I think I'm going to just move on... ;-)

He said he knew everything there was to know about the Navy.  That's one of the reasons he wished he would've stayed in.  He said he knew those ships inside and out.  He could do just about anything.  Even get a ship into port if he had to.

Once he had talked about the Navy for a bit, I decided to ask the thing I really wanted to ask.  I know he was at Pearl Harbor.  I read a newspaper article once where they had interviewed him about it also, but I really wanted to hear it from him.  So, I asked, "You were at Pearl Harbor too, weren't you?"

He said, "Yes I was.  I didn't like them Japanese that day."

He went on to tell me that his ship was in dry dock at the time.  So when it got started, there were certain big guns that couldn't be used since they were not used for airplanes.  They came around asking for volunteers to go over the side of the ship and do something.  Mr. Vance said they were looking for some "dummies."  He volunteered.  He climbed over the side of the ship, which was a danger because they were in dry dock so there was no water underneath.  If you fell, you were dead.

USS Pennsylvania BB 38 in dry dock.  Pearl Harbor.

He and two other guys went over and climbed down.  It was a fairly narrow area where they had to work.  It sounded like they were bolting something down.  I'm not sure what though.  One guy was a bigger guy and was in the way, so he went back up.  Mr. Vance and the other guy finished the job and began to climb back up.  Things had calmed a bit while they were down there.  But during the climb up, the "Japs" came back and were using machine guns this time.  Mr. Vance was climbing the ladder first and the other guy was below him.  He said they must have seen him and the other guy climbing up the side of the ship because they shot at them and the bullets went under his feet and over the other guy's head.  There were paint chips flying off the ship and onto the other guy's head.  He said that guy was never the same again through the war and even afterward.
He said he never thought that much about the significance of having been at Pearl Harbor until much later.  Then, what he said at the end of the story was the most profound concept and really struck me.  He said, in a very normal conversational tone, "That was one horrible day."

I couldn't help but think, in a 91 year life that has been full of experiences and adventures, something as catastrophic as being present at the bombing of Pearl Harbor was just "one horrible day".  ONE DAY.  It kind of puts a lot of things in perspective.  All situations and struggles are temporary.  There's always more to come, no matter what is going on in any moment.

After our long conversation, I told him how glad I was that I got to talk to him like that.  He said he was so glad to talk to me too.  He told me I should come talk to him more often.  So I am going to add a stop to some of my Sunday grandparent days or other days when I go down to the lake.  What an amazing time it was to be able to listen to these stories.  

Love, Pain and the Whole Crazy Thing (Christmas Style)

I LOVE decorating my house for Christmas.  Always have.  I can remember the Christmas tree we had when I was growing up.  It was an old school one that had a big pole with color coded holes around it at different heights.  The branches were separate and had a wire the bent down at a 90 degree angle which was painted in colors to match the holes on the upright pole.  You would spend an hour sorting all the branches and trying to discern the blue paint from the green paint on the ends of the branches.  Each color was a different size of branch so you could eventually figure out which were which.  I loved sorting the branches all the way around the dining room, kitchen, living room, hallway... where ever there was some floor space.  Then, with all the love and happiness in the world, I would put the largest branches on first, working from the bottom of the tree all the way up.  

Once they were on, it was time to fluff everything up.  With my arms and fingers getting poked and scratched by the artificial pine needles, I'd sing along to a Christmas cassette or CD (usually Garth Brooks, over and over again).  I'd bend each wire branch into the perfect position.  It would take at least one full day, if not the whole weekend for me to decorate mom and dad's house.  Most things had their place.  Mom had a layout for the Christmas decor, so I went along with it.  It was more about making the house beautiful and magical looking than being creative. It was the warm, fuzzy feeling I got from the season.

About five years ago, I started inheriting more and more Christmas decor from a number of sources (grandparents, parents, etc.).  I had a very large house and was married at that time.  Most everyone was getting to a point where they didn't want to do as much decorating anymore and I was the obvious first choice to call to off load anything they didn't want.  :-)

One day, my Grandma Leavelle asked if I had a theme or a color or anything that I wanted to focus on.  I really hadn't considered that.  I was just collecting whatever I could and finding places to put it all.  I started to search my mind and my heart for what it was that I loved the most and wanted to make the theme of my decor.  I thought about snowmen, silver, blue, angels, Santa Claus, Snow, White, Disney... all kinds of things.  And finally, it hit me.  I remembered how much I loved putting up the tree.  Spending time making it perfect.  Adding lights, garland and ornaments.  And most of all, I loved laying underneath it and looking up at the lights twinkling through the branches.  At mom and dad's house, there was a heat vent in the floor along the back side of the Christmas tree.  I'd lay down under the tree and put a blanket over myself and the vent and have the most warm and cozy place in the house.

That was it!  Trees.  I loved Christmas trees.  When we bought the big house, I got a second Christmas tree to put in a place that just seemed to be the perfect place for a little tree.  The next year, I started to have dreams that many would consider to be crazy.  I dreamed of a "forest" of Christmas trees inside my house!  It would have a little white picket fence and a snow covered ground.  Each tree would have a theme.  There would be snowmen and it would be gorgeous!  

I started measuring and planning and collecting Christmas trees from family members who didn't want to put theirs up anymore.  I bought a couple more when I found them on sale too.  I drilled out some 2x4's to make a base to stand the "fence" up in.  I even grabbed two tree shaped trellises that I had grown clematis on in the summer and wrapped them in lights and green garland to create two more trees.  We moved the furniture to make room for this grand display and I started setting up.

The first year there were seven trees and two snowmen in the forest.  It was stunning.  People thought I was crazy.  I never cared.  It became my favorite place to be.  I'd sit in that room almost every minute I was home.  I'd never turn on the house lights.  The twinkle and glow from the tree lights gave off more than enough light and was the most gorgeous glow.  It filled me with joy, love and peace to be there.

The first year

The next year or two years later (I can't remember which year is which), I would move to a new (much smaller) house after my divorce.  The lack of space wasn't about to take away my forest or dampen my spirit.  I figured out that if I moved the furniture out of the living room and made the forest a little more condensed, I could still fit all the trees in.  With a little re-working, the forest was back!

The first year in the new house

I added birdies decorating the trees that year

This year, I thought it was time to take it to a whole new level.  A level that would make many really worry about my sanity and gain me the title of "Christmas Enthusiast."  At the beginning of October I began working on a secret project.  I posted several things to social media, but would never tell anyone what it was or post anything to give it away.  I worked for over a month on it in every free moment I had.  It was a project all my own.  I took no assistance or advice from anyone.  I was on a mission to conquer the world in a way.  

There were some bumps in the road along the way including electrocution, bumps on head, stubbed toes, cuts, scrapes and a black eye.  It was all part of the experience.  I loved every minute of it.  Even the painful ones.  Go ahead and call me crazy.  You won't be the first or the last.  

In the end, I got it completed and installed and it is amazing.  It's a log cabin facade with a front porch that sits in my living room, among the Christmas trees.