What Next?

The phone rang about 5:30 on Sunday morning, May 16^th. 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 8^th grade that year. Graduation was scheduled for Friday afternoon, May 21^st, 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.

Dad's High School Years

Dad began going to Mesa High School in the fall of 1942.  Little did he realize that he would still be there forty years later.  Dad went out for football that year, and all four years of high school.  His leg muscles got so sore he could hardly move for the first few weeks.  That year dad didn't have a great season.  In the last scrimmage of the year he was playing a new position and two guys hit him and broke his leg just above the ankle.

Dad liked high school and did well.  His junior year he took A Capella Choir and auditioned for the part of the captain in the musical, HMS Pinafore.  He didn't get the part but was a sailor in the play and enjoyed that very much.

The summer after dad turned sixteen the war was on and help was scarce, so dad's friend, Gail Shelley, was able to get them jobs at a saw mill owned by his relative.  It was sixty miles north west of Prescott.  At first dad worked on the Green Chain, taking lumber off the chain and stacking it into piles.  After a while he got promoted to running the cut off saws.  They were two circular saws which could quickly be adjusted to cut boards at the desired length.  Two chains with steel cleats carried the boards to the saws.  One day dad was wearing baggy cover-alls.  He stood too close to one of the chains and a cleat caught his pants and pulled him toward the saws.  There was no way he could turn the saws off, and no one to help him, but at just the last moment somehow the motor stalled and he was saved.  He did get a bad cut on the side of one leg though, and when his folks heard about the accident they decided it was time for him to come home.

Back in Mesa dad got a job refueling airplanes at the RAF Field east of Mesa, (Falcon Field).  His job was to put gas in the planes and check the oil.  They told him the worst thing he could do was to leave the oil cap off after filling.  If that happened the oil would come out in flight and cause the plane to crash.  Many times after dad got back in his truck he would have to go back up on the plane to see if he had replaced the oil cap.  One night he was driving the gas truck down the taxi way when a plane turned in front of him and started taxiing fast towards him.  A pilot can't see what is directly in front of him while taxiing on the ground because the front of the plane is higher than the pilot.  Dad was sure scared and could imagine what would happen if that plane hit the gasoline truck.  Thank goodness the pilot stopped or turned or something and nothing happened.

The summer between dad's junior and senior year he went back to the saw mill with Gail.  This summer he rode the carriage and set blocks.  In this job he pulled the handle that moved the log into the main saw.  He liked this job better and there was more action.  Dad also worked in the woods some, cutting branches off trees after they had been cut down, but mostly he drove two black mares that pulled the logs to the loader.  He enjoyed driving those horses; they were beautiful, big and strong, smart and fun to work with.  They would stop immediately when told and more than once dad would have been crushed between the log they were pulling and a tree if they had not stopped when commanded to do so.

The most exciting thing that happened to him that summer happened while he was hauling water in the old water truck.  The truck was in bad shape, the generator didn't work so the battery was always dead and they had to start it by pulling.  The brakes didn't work, either.  One afternoon dad was sent to get a load of water for the first time alone.   On the way back there was a steep little hill.  Dad tried to shift into first gear as he climbed the hill, but he couldn't get it in and the truck stalled.  Dad was afraid it would die and wouldn't start again, and he was five miles from camp, so he put in the clutch.  Immediately the truck started rolling backwards down the hill.  The faster he went the harder it was to keep the truck in the road.  The water in the back kept sloshing back and forth.  There was a big log by the side of the road at the bottom of the hill.  The truck ran into it, stopping the truck and knocking dad semi unconscious.  Dad finally decided he wasn't dead, and believe it or not the motor was still running, but the cab of the truck was turned a quarter turn to the right.  Dad finally got up enough nerve to try again, and this time he started in low gear and made it.  He would have been OK if he hadn't got stuck crossing a sandy wash a half mile from camp.  He sure was embarrassed to have to walk back to camp and tell them what happened.  They didn't send him for water again.

That August (1945) they heard the news about a big bomb being dropped in Japan.  They didn't have a radio at the saw mill so the only news they got was brought by truck drivers coming to pick up lumber.  One driver would say the war was over, the next that it was not.  This lasted for several days until they finally heard for sure.

Dad's senior year he was Boy's League President and on the student council.  Dad was also selected as one of the top ten seniors.  He played football again, but was never outstanding.  Dad's younger brother, Dan, though, was great.  He was a Sophomore that year but was big for his age and played first string quarterback.  Dad was often congratulated for playing a great game and passing the ball so well.  Usually Dad just thanked people instead of correcting them.  Dad graduated that spring, in 1946.