The phone rang about 5:30 on Sunday morning, May 16th. As soon as I answered it my sister-in-law, LaKay, sobbed, “Can I talk to Moe? I can't wake dad up!”
Ever since Grandma Ashcroft had passed away, LaKay had lived with Grandpa, taking care of him. He'd done really well, but he was in his nineties, and tired and ready to go home.
“Call 911 and have them take dad to the hospital,” Moe told her when he got to the phone. “It sounds like he's had an aneurism, or maybe a stroke. I'll be down there as soon as I can.”
Moe left immediately to go to the Valley, and I stayed to take care of mom and the girls, and of course the horses up at our place. Mom was actually feeling well enough to go to church that day, but as soon as she got home she got sick again. She was very bad for awhile, but eventually the medicine took away the terrible pain and she able to sleep all afternoon. I made lunch, went up to our five acres to feed the horses in the afternoon, then watched church movies with the girls and mom in the evening, all the while wondering how long Grandpa Ashcroft would hold on.
Strange; it was mother whose health was so bad that we thought she would go at any time. I'd never imagined that Moe's mom, my dad, and even his dad might pass away before she did.
“Dad just died,” Moe told me on the phone the following evening, about 6:30. “LaKay and I decided he passed just in time for him to have family night with Grandma.”
“How are you doing?” I asked. “And LaKay?”
“We're fine,” Moe said. “Dad never regained consciousness, but he was peaceful all day, and there was a sweet spirit in the room. Everything is OK here.”
I was glad, but a cranky little voice in the back of my head whispered, “Yeah, everything is OK there, but what about here? Don't you even care about how I'm doing, or mother or the girls?” I didn't voice my thoughts, though. I knew Moe was focused on taking care of his dad and LaKay, which was as it should be. Some day I needed to learn to stop being so selfish.
Moe stayed down in the Valley to help LaKay get ready for Grandpa's funeral, so I continued feeding the horses twice a day, getting the girls through their last week of school, and taking care of mother. Krissi graduated from 8th grade that year. Graduation was scheduled for Friday afternoon, May 21st, but it was also the day Moe's family wanted to have Grandpa's funeral.
“I don't care about going to my graduation,” Krissi assured me when I talked to her Tuesday after school. I looked at her hard, but it really didn't seem to matter to her, so I didn't insist that the funeral be changed.
The girls last day of school was Thursday. Friday morning we left about 8:30 to drive down to the Valley, leaving mom in the care of my sisters. We got there at 11:00, just in time for the viewing, then grandpa's funeral at 12:00. Moe did a good job talking, and the funeral was nice.
There was a luncheon right after, since grandpa was going to be buried the next day beside Grandma Ashcroft up in Eager, in the White Mountains, where he had been born. It was nice, visiting with family, and afterward I took my daughter Alyssa's children with us to LaKay's house to watch them so she could decorate a wedding cake for her father's, my ex-husband's, third wedding. Funny how things seem to happen all at the same time.
On Saturday Kami had a special awards ceremony at the Phoenix Zoo, where she was honored for painting an award winning picture of a duck in an art contest. Moe stayed with LaKay, to help her drive up to Eager, but my married kids went to the Zoo with us. As soon as Kami got her award I took Krissi and left to drive home, leaving Kami with the older kids. She was going to spend the first week of summer vacation down in the Valley.
Krissi and I got home about 2:30, just in time to run in and check on mom, then meet Moe and LaKay to drive over to Eager for Grandpa Ashcroft's graveside ceremony.
It seemed strange to come home after that, and find that everything was still the same, but different.
“When did my life become so convoluted?” I wondered.
Dad was gone, Grandpa and Grandma Ashcroft were gone, mom was terribly sick, and still life went on. I couldn't help wondering what was going to happen next?
My brother-in-law, Alan, mom's doctor, was as surprised as the rest of us that mom was still with us.
“Her heart must actually be much stronger than anyone thought,” was all he could say.
At first, every time mom had a bad spell I expected her to pass on, but as time went by I guess we all got desensitized. I knew it was coming, but somehow it wasn't as scary anymore.
But mom was so tired, and lonely for dad, and she just plain didn't feel good even when she was not in pain all the time, which she often was. Still, she was so patient and good, always worrying about other people, that it was easy to forget just how sick she really was. When I sat and visited with her, or when we watched TV together, she seemed just the same as always. It was when I helped her get up into her wheelchair to go to the bathroom, or into bed, that I knew how far down she had gone. She was the bravest, sweetest, most charitable person I had ever known, and I hardly ever even realized it.
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