This time....last year.

This time last year was when everything started to go down-hill. It had been slowly building toward this for awhile, but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw a year ago this very day.

My Happy Daddy was the most wonderful man on earth. He was such a gentleman and was the best grandfather that any person could ask for. He loved my grandmother with such verocity that he knew he had to go before she did....he couldn't live without her.

I brought Happy Daddy a Coke that day (he loved Coke) and I stopped by the kitchen at the nursing home and had them thicken it (he could have aspirated anything thinner). He sat up in his bed and grabbed that Coke and was really dowing it. He loved it! About 5 minutes later, the strongest man I ever knew was gone. I believe that in this small window of time, that he had a stroke. He turned into a different person....lost his dignity, which was prehaps the hardest thing to witness. He had already had documents drawn up requesting that he not be placed on a feeding tube. We put him on Hospice and wondered how long it would take. Little did we know that it wouldn't take long.

That night, one year ago, my Mom and I sat on the floor beside his bed (it had to be lowered to the floor b/c they were afraid he would try to get out and fall). Happy Daddy had ahold of my Mom's hand to the right and mine to the left. He would squeeze our hands every now and again and look down and smile at us. We sat there for hours and hours.....wishing that time would stand still, but knowing that it was a selfish wish.

We called in all the family and Mother and Happy Daddy's room was packed the next day. He was unconscience the entire time except to tell me to tell Mother that he loved her. We had a blessed day with our family that day.

The last of the family left the room about 10 minutes before he died. No one knew it would be that soon. But, as I mentioned, he was a gentleman and I do believe that he waited for us to leave before he would go. He never would have wanted to burden us by having us witness his death, although it was a burden that I would have taken on in a minute (and so would most of my family).

6 weeks to the day later, we lost my grandmother. I was with Mother when she passed and it was peaceful and beautiful, but haunting to this day.

They are together now. They feel no pain, Happy Daddy walks straight and tall and Mother is right beside him, holding his hand.

There is a song that talks about not crying for those we have lost, but cry for those left behind. That is so true. We are the ones that spend our lives missing our loved ones.

This time last year, I could hold his hand and talk to him.....now I will visit their gravesite, where my own precious baby is buried at the head of Happy Daddy's grave and cry.

I miss them both so much.