Self-motivated

I work from home. One side-effect of this is that my office is periodically invaded by barbarian-like hordes of rampaging preschoolers and toddlers. While repelling one such invasion today, I noticed that Calista, my one-year-old daughter, was missing her shirt. Also her shoes and pants. And her diaper. Since it's a father's job to pay attention to these things, I investigated. Turns out that Calista has decided to potty train herself today. So far she's refused all clothing and, entirely on her own initiative, has been using the toilet all day. She is very pleased with herself.

The Joys of Parenting

It started Thursday night. I've been fighting off the same chest cold that sent Calista to the doctor's office New Year’s Day, so before I went to bed, I took a couple NyQuil to help me sleep. About 1:00 am, I woke out of a drug-fogged sleep to find our four-year-old son Caedmon crawling into our bed. That wasn't unprecedented, but it's not normal either. I was groggy enough that I decided to cut him some slack, so I put up with him squirming and kicking me for 15 minutes or so before finally deciding that no, he had to go back to his own bed. So I picked him up and carried him back to his room. I was setting him down into his bunk bed when I noticed a strong sour smell in the air, and simultaneously felt my hands plunge into a wet, sticky substance covering his blankets. My brain took a few seconds to put it all together and draw some conclusions. Then I sighed and picked him up and carried him back into our room. We made a bed for him on the floor, got a bowl from the kitchen, and put him down, hoping that would be the end of it.

About 20 minutes later, we were awoken again, to the sound of Caedmon gagging. Most of it made it in the bowl, but by no means all of it. More cleanup and consoling. Then something like sleep, more gagging, more cleanup, more consoling. This repeated itself all night long, every 20 minutes or so, until about 5:00 am, when Caedmon finally managed to get to sleep and stay asleep. About the same time, I removed myself to the couch downstairs, and got an hour or so of rest.

When we woke up, we let Caedmon continue to sleep in our bed, and Galena began cleaning his room. Our one-year-old daughter Calista wasn't making any noise, so we let her sleep, while I tried to entertain our two-year-old son, Brendan. By 8:30 or so, though, Galena decided that she really needed to check on Calista. When she opened the door, she got a full whiff: turns out Calista had been having the same troubles, but had suffered them all in complete silence. (We even had the baby monitor on!) So her crib, her blankets, and her hair was encrusted with not-quite-dried puke. Calista herself was surprisingly calm about the whole thing, and gave us a big grin as we gingerly tried to extract her from the Crib of Dried Vomit.

After that, Friday and Friday night passed more-or-less without event. On Saturday morning, we thought we'd seen the worst of it, and since the kids were begging to go outside and play in the snow, we got them dressed and spent some time outdoors. (Caedmon discovered that it's painfully tricky to ride your bike in the snow; Brendan and Calista discovered, once again, that your hands get cold and hurt when you play in the snow and refuse to wear gloves.)

But Saturday afternoon, Calista started having a variety of diarrhea episodes, including at least one "Level 3 Containment Failure" (I'll leave the exact definition of that to your imagination). And then Galena started looking green around the gills. And then she threw up. And then the other end as well. Rinse and repeat.

So Galena took herself to bed, while I did my best to entertain the kids. Caedmon and Calista were definitely feeling better, but were still a little stunned after their run-in with the Stomach Bug That's Going Around. Brendan seemed to have a stainless steel immune system, however, and wasn't going to let anything slow him down. (And you have to remember, through all this, that I've got a cold too, and periodically feel like I'm about to hack up a lung.) When evening rolled around, I finally got the kids fed and down to bed, and all seemed quiet. So I checked in with Galena, who was still in bed, and then left for Bellevue, for a movie night with some friends that had been long planned (and for which I was supposed to supply the movie).

I got a call from a groggy-sounding Galena around 8:30. "Brendan just threw up," she said, sounding on the verge of tears. "Can you come home?" By 9:00 pm or so, I was thus available to make myself the target for Brendan's third heave of the evening. After several more abortive attempts to get Brendan to sleep, I gave up, and for an hour or two, he sat on my lap with a bowl in his hands. We passed the time by watching extreme skiing videos off of YouTube (at Brendan's request). We'd pause the video - or sometimes not - whenever Brendan started heaving, then I'd wipe his mouth, and we'd start watching the video again. It was oddly bonding. By midnight, the worst had passed, and I put him to bed.

I should note that during all this, my side of the bed had gotten nailed with at least one round, so I elected to spend the rest of the night in the guest bed in the library. Galena's side was relatively clean, and more than that, she was too tired to care.

I got up around 7:30 this morning to find Brendan and Caedmon in great spirits: they weren't up to the Running and Chasing Game, precisely, but they were quarreling normally and demanding books and juice and videos. But by 9:00 am, when Calista still hadn't made any noise, I decided to check on her. Turns out that (once again) she'd been having the same trouble as everyone else, but (also once again) hadn't complained to let anyone know about it. The carpet around her crib, her bedding, her hair, and the outside of her pajamas were covered with one particularly noxious substance; the inside of her pajamas, and most of her body, was covered with a different one, surprisingly similar in texture and smell, and equally objectionable. Even after I gave Calista a shower, Galena was still combing unidentified chunks out of her hair.

That brings us up to the present. I'm the only one who hasn't gotten the bug yet, but I can feel it circling warily at a distance, like a pack of wolves preparing for the attack. We've basically decided that all the normal household rules and routines are out the window. The kids are watching videos and drinking juice and eating pretty much whenever and whatever they want. Galena informs me that Calista has just fallen asleep in the hallway. Brendan and Caedmon have scattered a box of paper clips around my office, and I can barely bring myself to care. Civilization and discipline has given way to raw survival.

Wish us luck.

Excess Excitement at the Smith Household

You know your morning just got interesting when you're downstairs and hear a huge thud from upstairs, followed by your wife screaming. When you get upstairs and she's laying on her back, still screaming, you know it just got very interesting.

The long and the short of it is that when Galena was getting dressed this morning, she went to step up onto our bathtub, so that she could get a full-length look at herself in the counter mirror. As she was stepping up, however, her kneecap dislocated again (#3!), and she crashed backwards down onto the floor (which was the thud that I'd heard). By the time I got up there, she was lying on her back, holding her knee in her hands, alternately screaming, then whimpering and then screaming again. The kids piled into the bathroom behind me, with rather wide eyes. I very briefly tried to relocate her patella, but not having the foggiest idea what I was doing, quickly gave that up, and ran to get  some ice, which was maybe a nice gesture, but almost equally pointless. After contemplating what would be required to get her to the hospital on my own, with three kids in tow, I gave up on that idea too, and just called 911.

In the meantime, Caedmon had run to get a couple pillows for Galena, so that she could rest (slightly) more comfortably. Brendan had progressed from wide-eyed to his signature line, "It's too scary! It's too scary!" Calista, thankfully, was almost entirely oblivious, and occupied herself with rolling toys down the stairs, to make sure the paramedics were appropriately welcomed.

The ambulance arrived a couple minutes later, and they made their way upstairs. The lead paramedic examined her and said, "I've never relocated a patella before, but a doctor showed me how once. You want me to give it a shot?" These weren’t perhaps the most reassuring words, but Galena nodded grimly, and after one false start (which resulted in a great deal more screaming), it slid back into place. And with that, the pain went away almost entirely. The paramedics decided to take her to the hospital anyway, just in case something worse had happened, and bundled her out the door.

That was my signal to call Karn Hanhart, who very graciously dropped everything she was doing, and rushed over. Caedmon was initially very keen on coming to the hospital with me, but then he heard me instructing Karn to let them watch as much TV as they wanted. He figured another opportunity like this wasn't going to come his way anytime soon, and decided to stay home.

At the hospital, they x-rayed her leg, concluded that nothing else was wrong, and sent her home. The whole thing finished up by 11:45 am or thereabouts. At this point, Galena's hurting a little bit, but not badly. She's lying on the couch, resting and basically letting Caedmon wait on her, which he seems pretty happy to do.

She's supposed to go visit an orthopedist later this week. Since this is the third time this has happened, they may recommend surgery, or physical therapy, or maybe nothing: but we'll wait until she's had the consult before making any decisions.

A Eulogy for Elmer Smith

My 97-year old grandfather died this week, and I’m currently down in Southern Oregon to attend his memorial service and to help clean up his house.  This is what I read at his memorial service.

Elmer Smith came from the humblest of beginnings, but by the time he graduated from high school, his teachers were telling him he needed to apply to MIT. That was the sort of mind my grandfather had been given: intense, analytical, searingly precise. But my grandfather had other goals besides academic achievement. He wanted a wife, and he wanted a family. That was the sort of heart my grandfather possessed: generous, disciplined, searingly loyal. So he turned from MIT to Montana: he exchanged the dreams of a brilliant engineering career for a pair of lips that he first kissed on a quiet Kalispell street in 1933. And my famously skinflint grandfather would have called the price cheap.

Although I came into the picture much later, I have no experience of life without him. In my earliest memories, he is a constant figure: often present, always desired. He was not just strong: to my young mind, he was strength itself, and intelligence, and character. For many years, even as he entered his eighth and ninth decades, it seemed impossible that he should ever depart this earth. He was the earth, and the salt thereof. He was my hero, everything I ever wanted to be, the very special gift of a God who knows how much little kids need Grandpas. God gave many gifts to our family, but none more valuable or valued than a patriarch who loved his wife, who loved his family, and who loved me.

It wasn’t until about fifteen years ago, when my grandfather lost his eyesight, that we began to realize that the Lord would eventually take back those many gifts he had given. Five years ago, my grandfather broke his ankle, and began using a cane. Three years ago, he lost his beloved wife of 72 years to cancer. Two years ago, he broke his hip. Last year, he had to leave the property he had nurtured for 60 years. The brilliant and brash young man who had conquered his wife’s heart as easily as he conquered the Salmon River was now lonely, crippled and blind. God had given my grandfather in his youth great strength, amazing health, a warm home, and a loving wife; and as my grandfather aged, God slowly and inexorably withdrew each of those gifts. In the end, God recalled even His gift of rational thought. The time came, during his last weeks, when my grandfather’s reason rambled but loosely through his conversations.

But it was during this time, when almost everything God had provided him was removed, that we could see most clearly who my grandfather was at his core, and who he had always been. From his bed, unable to walk or see, he talked a great deal about fixing things, even if those things existed only in his imagination or memory. He talked continuously about family, even if the loved ones with whom he was conversing had departed years ago. And he talked ardently about his Lord. He felt God’s presence a great deal in his final days. When we gathered with him to pray or to sing hymns, tears would stream down his face, and his scattered wits would slowly recollect themselves. He prayed constantly for his family, and made each of us assure him that we would, in our turn, meet him in heaven.

Rest did not come easily to my grandfather, nor to a heart that had beat steadily for 97 years. But he is at rest now, at peace in the presence of the Savior he served faithfully, and reunited with the wife he loved passionately.

During these last weeks, I’ve thought a great deal about death, how it comes to us all, even the strongest and best. One day, I know, I will follow in my grandfather’s footsteps. One day, God will require from me an account of all the many gifts that I have received. I hope, when that day comes, that I will face it with the same fortitude and good humor my grandfather showed in his final years. I pray that I will have lived a life of enough faith and love that, like my grandfather, my own children and grandchildren and great grandchildren will be gathered around me. One day, I will follow my grandfather down the long valley of the shadow of death; and one day, I pray to meet him again when the world is made new.

Backpacking at Dorothy Lake

For my Dad's birthday in July, I offered to take him on a backpacking/photography trip to a location of his choice. We ended up going to Dorothy Lake and environs, and spent a couple days hiking around, taking pictures, cooking steak and bacon. I haven't seen my Dad's pictures yet, but a selection of mine follow.

 

More here.

Caedmon’s Dinner Redux

Caedmon – our personal hobbit – was having an odd day today. He ate hardly any "second breakfast", and refused to eat any lunch. He ate a normal amount for "second lunch", but when dinner came around he was famished. He ate two slices of cheese, half a hot-dog, and then three bowls of blueberries.

After dinner he took a bath, and then had his standard bedtime bottle, which he drank completely.

I was cuddling with him for a few minutes before putting him down when I noticed he was, well, hiccuping, or something like that. That went on for 15-20 seconds.

Then it all came back, like a bad debt.

The first wave of formula, blueberries and hotdog washed all over my shirt, shorts and the chair.

Caedmon turned to look at me, astonished.

The second wave exploded directly onto my face.

I hurriedly moved him out to arms length.

The third wave drenched my arms, his sleep sack and the carpet.

Poor Caedmon dangled for a few seconds, as stunned as I was, then started to cry.

Sigh.

I comforted the poor guy, then dropped him off in the bathroom, stripped down to my shorts, and proceeded to clean up. A new onesie for the over-eager hobbit, some quick cleanup of the larger pieces, and Caedmon back in bed, I was finally able to take a shower. But I'm not sure the smell or Daddy's trauma will be leaving anytime soon.

Wallace Falls

We took another quick hike up to Wallace Falls today, with my nieces Ashley and Brianna. A few shots: More.

Going Home

My cousin Amber drove up from Medford earlier this week, to help take care of my grandfather. Today she left to go back home, and took him with her. He's continue to improve over the last two and a half weeks since his fall, but it's still going to be a long road back to recovery for him, I think. I should note that my niece Kaity took this picture below:

Busted Out

We managed to get my grandfather out of Cascade Vista and up to Keith's place on Saturday. It might be a stretch to say that he's thriving there, but he seems to be doing well.

As you can imagine, a 95-year-old man with a broken ankle and a broken hip takes a fair amount of looking after. My Dad came up for an extended visit, and has been taking charge of his care for the last several days. He's heading back home today, but my cousin Amber will be up tomorrow.

Among other things, just keeping track of his appointments and schedule is a fair bit of work. He's got a doctor's visit tomorrow to remove the staples from his hip surgery, followed by a visit with an RN to check his Coumadin levels, and then several hours of physical and occupational therapy. He's a busy guy.

My Grandfather

A little less than two months ago, my 95-year old grandfather lost his wife, his beloved companion of 75 years. He's continued to live independently, and family has been stopping by to see him regularly, but it's still tough for him, and I know that he's been very lonely. So Galena and I invited him up from Southern Oregon for a week or so to visit, and to have Easter dinner with family up here in Seattle. He flew in last Tuesday, and I picked him up at the airport. He was excited to see us, excited to be on his first trip in some years, and happy that someone still wanted him.

The next day, Wednesday evening, as he was going to bed, he slipped and fell down our staircase. I heard the thuds from the next room, and ran to find him lying unconscious on our hardwood floor, bleeding from a large bump on his head. I called 911. He recovered consciousness in a couple minutes, and immediately began complaining of a pain to his hip. Several hours later, in the Evergreen Hospital emergency room, an x-ray confirmed that he had broken his hip.

He had surgery the next day. Dr. Roh, a Korean Christian and, by all accounts, an excellent surgeon, repaired his hip successfully.

They've changed their approach to broken hips dramatically over the last decade or so, and the standard approach these days is to get the patient back on his feet as quickly as possible. By my count, they had him walking about 14 hours after the surgery. He was pretty sore, and fairly unsteady, but he was walking, which is more than we had expected.

On Monday, we transferred him to a rehab center. Figuring out where he should go, and getting him there, was a fairly complicated process. I checked out all the nursing homes in the area on the Medicare "Nursing Home Compare" website, talked to half a dozen people, waffled back and forth several times, and finally selected three of the more likely rehab facilities to visit. Unfortunately, neither our first nor our second choice would take my grandfather's insurance. A word to the wise: don't ever go with an insurance plan which has bought out your "Medicare Part A" coverage. From what I can tell, the typical way they intend to be more efficient than Medicare is by throwing huge bureaucratic obstacles in the way of your accessing any of the benefits that you're entitled to. A number of nursing homes have understandably gotten tired of the run-around, and hence refuse to accept this style of insurance. It was pretty frustrating.

We finally managed to place him in Cascade Vista, a nursing home/rehab facility in Redmond, about halfway between home and office. Cascade Vista is a decent place, all things considered, but it's nevertheless been difficult for my grandfather. The quality of the staff is uneven: some of them are amazingly good and caring, some of them gruff or even rude. They had zero deficiencies in their last quality survey, which is pretty good: I checked the "skilled nursing facilities" in Grants Pass, my home town, and many were in the double-digits on that particular metric. But it's still hard for an old, blind, lame dude who has lived independently for 95 years, and on the same property for the last 60, to adjust to being stuck in bed, in a strange institution, with people who, at their best, still don't take the same care with him that his family does.

So we finally decided today that we were going to "break him out", as Keith put it. My Dad is back up, and tomorrow we'll be moving him into Keith's house. (Galena and I offered ours, but we don't have a level first floor, and the only baths and showers are on the second floor: it'll be a while before we let Grandpa navigate stairs again.) We've found a home healthcare service, and will be bringing in a physical and occupational therapist to help him regain his strength and, hopefully, his independence. I don't know that he'll ever be able to live fully independent again, and I'm pretty sure he won't be taking the stairs anytime soon. It's sad to see my grandfather, a strong, healthy, intelligent man, decline like this. But I think he still has some years in him, and hopefully he'll at least improve from where he's at now.

More pictures here.

Eulogy

This is the eulogy that I read at my grandmother's funeral yesterday.

Epitaph

In the days since my grandmother died, I've been meditating on a poem by C. S. Lewis, written after the death of his wife, and now carved on her gravestone in Oxford, England. C. S. Lewis writes,

Here the whole world (stars, water, air
Reflected in a single mind)
Like cast-off clothes was left behind
In ashes, yet with hope that she
Re-born from holy poverty,
In Lenten lands, hereafter may,
Resume them on her easter day.

Early in the morning of February 4^th, Ruby Helen Lucille Smith left behind, like cast-off clothes, the mortal body she had carried with grace since 1917. The husband with whom she had shared a bed and a life for 72 years was with her, and held her hand, and felt the Holy Spirit fill the room even as her own spirit departed. Several hours later, as our family gathered around her deathbed to say one last good-bye, my mind was flooded with the memories of how that mortal body had served her over those years, and how she had used that body to serve others. So many meals: so many wounds bandaged, tears dried, cookies baked, diapers changed, grandchildren hugged, emails sent and demanded. How one quiet woman could represent so much activity and goodness is one of the mysteries of love.

We are gathered here today to celebrate the life, mourn the death, and rejoice in the homecoming of an extraordinary woman. Whether we knew her as friend, aunt, grandmother, mother or loving wife, I can think of no better way to honor her than to take a few moments to look through her eyes, to see the whole world as it was reflected in the single mind of Ruby Smith.

Her Friends

Deep and lasting friendships formed a constant background to my grandmother's world. Ruby Smith did not establish temporary relationships, or make friends out of convenience. The friends she made when she worked at Harry and David's in the 1940's, or when she attended Ashland Christian Center in the 1950's, or when she worked at the orthopedic clinic in the 60's and 70's, remained her friends for life. The number of these friendships necessarily diminished over the years, as she and Elmer remained healthy and vigorous, while more and more of their friends passed on. But as anyone who was a recipient of her emails can testify, her days, and Elmer's, were passed in frequent communication with old friends, visiting those who had grown sick, and helping those no longer able to fend for themselves. I do not believe that any friend of Ruby's could ever have complained of neglect or inattention; and a great many people in Ruby's world had cause to be thankful for her consistent hospitality and quiet kindness.

Her Twins

My grandmother's world revolved around her family. When my grandfather rushed her to the hospital on a warm July day in 1940, the two of them had little idea what was in store. The labor drugs knocked her out, and when she awoke, the nurse asked, "Did you know that you had twins?" Still groggy, Ruby responded, "I didn't know I had any."

Ruby assumed her new role as the mother of twin boys with gusto. For the next 18 years, she cooked, cleaned, mended, kissed, coddled, scolded, and chased her boys into adulthood. In 1957, my famously frugal grandparents splurged on a brand-new '57 Chevy for their two sons, and this was typical: they rarely bought anything for themselves, but nothing was too good for their boys.

Her Family

When Larry and Lloyd left home, married and had families of their own, Ruby found her world expanding once again. As the decades passed, through marriages, births, adoptions and virtual adoptions, she found herself the matriarch of a substantial and growing tribe. And again, although they rarely bought anything for themselves, they helped their grandchildren in any way that they could. Numerous house down payments, new cars, new computers, or college tuition payments had their origin in the bank account of a retired couple who never made more than $8 / hour.

Her Email

As the years passed, keeping the scattered and sundry members of her family connected became a substantial challenge. But many decades ago, she had instituted a tradition of regular letters to all and sundry, a tradition which she maintained until her 91^st birthday. They started as hand-written letters, copied at the local post office, and sent out manually. About 15 years ago, we bought her an electric typewriter; her letters were perhaps longer after that, and of course typewritten, but otherwise unchanged.

It was probably 10 years ago that we pitched in and bought her first computer. She was horrified at the thought, and even called Larry in a panic: "They've bought me a computer, and they're bringing it over, and I need you to make them stop!" Nevertheless, we set it up for her, and walked her through turning it on. We showed her how to point and click with a mouse, showed her how to use a word processor, and how to access the Internet with a browser. She remained unimpressed.

Then we showed her email.

We had no idea we were about to create a monster. We should have known by the way her breath quickened when she saw us adding email addresses to the "To:" line. She watched us change fonts, and then email backgrounds, her eyes narrowing. She sat down. We showed her how easy it was to reply to her emails, and how easily she could reply to ours. The look on her face grew sharp, and hungry. She wanted this.

The monster was born.

Ten years, three computers, two printers, and many thousands of emails later, we learned that the monster must be fed. If Grandma didn't get twenty or thirty emails a day, she felt neglected. She forwarded emails like a fiend. She kept track of who had sent her emails recently and who hadn't. Woe betide the grandson who neglected to email his grandmother, for his neglect should be broadcast to the entire family, and then some.

As to the letters: they were just the daily life of a woman who had seen 90 summers in her lifetime, and 90 winters; who had watched three generations grow up in her house; who had cooked more meals than I know how to count and fed more hungry descendants than I care to; who watched the husband she loved dearly for 75 years grow old alongside her. It was just life; but it was life.

Her Husband

Ruby's world held nothing of greater worth than a skinny red-haired refugee from the Depression, fresh off the Salmon River, with an empty wallet and few prospects for filling it. Since their first walk home, and their first kiss under a Montana sky, Ruby had eyes for little else in this world. Most of you know that two weeks after she graduated from high school, Ruby and Elmer eloped – and that when they returned to Kalispell, they kept their marriage a secret for six months. It is the stuff of family legend that Ruby's father began to suspect something amiss only when Elmer began coming down from Ruby's bedroom for breakfast.

Ruby and her husband were inseparable. One story of many will suffice. Until this week, I believe that the last time my grandparents spent a night apart was twelve years ago, in 1996. I was moving up to Oregon from Southern California, and it seemed entirely natural to me to ask my blind 83-year old grandfather to come down and help me pack. We left Los Angeles late, after many delays, and my grandfather kept me company as I drove the moving van through the night. We arrived in Phoenix early the next morning, and were both exhausted as we drove up to their house, parked and climbed out. As the eldest grandchild, I had grown used to my grandmother rushing out of the house to hug me whenever I came to visit, so I wasn't surprised to see the door fly open and Ruby run down the driveway. But this time she ran right past me and practically leaped into her husband's waiting arms. Only after some minutes of fussing over him did she manage a quick hug for me; and then immediately returned to Elmer's arm, hardly to be shook off. An eldest grandchild was a poor substitute for the husband she had missed so badly.

These stories are typical of their relationship: they loved each other passionately, unreasonably, completely. The Great Depression, wars and rumors of wars, social revolutions and real ones, passed by in the outside world, leaving their love untouched. Children were born, then grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; even age itself began to take its toll, but the strength of their love was renewed like the eagle's.

Her Death

For the Christian, death will always have two faces. It is true – it is blessedly true – that we rejoice, because Ruby is now with her Lord; and so long as the Lord tarries, the beatific vision which Ruby is now experiencing can be achieved in no other way than by walking the lonely valley of death. But make no mistake: death is an enemy, and we fool ourselves if we think otherwise, or belittle its importance. If death is not important, neither is birth. Death rips us apart from the world which God made good, and in which God placed us.

And Ruby's death was in this respect no exception. My grandmother did not want to die. "I never expected this," I heard her say repeatedly during her final weeks. "This is so sudden." Until three weeks ago, she had not seen a doctor for six years, and had never so much as taken an antibiotic. Her perpetual good health made the sudden weakness that took her all the more alarming. She worried about her dumpy, her house, the sudden flood of guests. Ruby's world was full of friends, family, and a husband whom she loved dearly, and it was not a world that she wished to leave behind.

Even so, even as her weakness grew and her own death grew more imminent, my grandmother revealed a grace that we had always suspected, and a sense of humor that we had not. She kept us laughing through our tears as she retold old stories, and a few new ones. She harangued her eldest great-grandchild into getting his hair cut. She refused to put to rest the rumor that she had actually proposed to Elmer. She revealed the existence of a stash of coffee she had long kept secret from my grandfather.

When her husband was being stubborn about something, she turned to him, wagged her finger, and said, "In a few days, you'll be the boss, but for right now, it's still me!"

At one point, as her illness dragged on, and her family refused to budge from her bedside, she said, "I can just imagine the headline on my obituary: 'FINALLY'."

My grandmother's death came three weeks after her diagnosis, and it was a blessing; but after 91 years, it was too soon. She died as she lived: much loved, surrounded by family, and fussing just a little.

Her New World

The whole world, as reflected in the single mind of Ruby Helen Lucille Smith, was as clear as daybreak, as simple as a stream, profound as the stars. If you had looked through her eyes, you would have seen a world as broad as a lifetime of friendship, as narrow and focused as her family, and as plain as the ten acres of earth on which she and her husband built a lifetime together. This is the world that Ruby Smith has cast off; but she cast it off in hope, with the faith that one day, when the world is made new, she will clothe herself with it anew: when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality.

In that reborn world, we know that God will wipe every tear from our eyes. But that world is not this world, and in this world, our tears are appropriate. So let us grieve for our loss; but Lord, do not let us grieve as those who have no hope. "For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God. And the dead in Christ shall rise first; and then, we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words."

Update on Grandma

My grandmother is still hanging in there. She hasn't eaten in over two weeks, and hasn't drank anything for several days, but her body is refusing to give up. She's still surprisingly lucid, as this story from my Dad indicates:

Grandma had asked Dennis Medley (worked with her at the therapy office) to sing at her funeral in 1983 when they made their funeral plans. Dennis singing was written in their plan that I got from the funeral home folder. Dennis and Patti came by tonight to be with Mom and to talk about the funeral. We talked again about him singing He the Pearly Gates Will Open at the funeral and what they normally get paid. He told us that Mom had given him a 20 dollar bill in 1983 to pay for his singing so we do not have to pay him. He said it looks like he is on the hook to sing 25 years later. We asked Mom after he left and she said that was true. That is just like Mom, all paid up.

Update on my Grandmother

After spending all week down in Southern Oregon, Galena and Caedmon and I drove back home last night. My Grandma hasn't eaten for nearly a week – with the result that the cancer isn't really growing anymore, but only because she's slowly starving herself to death. She's not in a lot of pain, but it's very sad to see her so weak.

The latest update from my uncle, who's still down there, and with her every day:

It feels so strange doing family updates – Mother always did that. She is growing weaker by the day, but still talking and answering questions, and asking lots of questions.

Today she cried so much. Said her emotions were flowing.

We had another 30-40 people through the house to see her.

One sad note was watching Mother's dishes and decorative collections being distributed to family members. Mother asked us to start taking things home. I carried out some of Mother's prized red dishes to the car and bawled on the steps. It really brought home that this is it.

Lloyd was able to identify one of the folks' 1935 wedding gifts and packed it up. Mother told the story of how they got the cake stand – originally made in 1855. Each member was told if they took something, it could not end up in a garage sale.

She can still share and enjoys visiting at times, but other times she starts dreaming, she says, and talks about things that we do not understand.

She wants to get out and help us. Worries about the house.

Wants the noise to be kept down.

We had a grand church service with her last night.

Most of the family left up north for a few days of work. Lloyd is still here keeping Amber and Dad company. Amber looks so tired. Her family came over for a couple of hours to be with their mother.

The Mail Tribune came out and did a story on hospice and our family. They are doing a story on nurse shortage. Wonder how it will play out.

As Mother would have written,

Sad in Phoenix,

Larry.

Some more pictures from our time down there: