Sad Sunday

 

We recently had a birthday party for Drew, and my husband’s Grandpa and Grandma were there, like they always are. They are getting up there in age (early 80s) and we know that we won’t have them around forever. At the party, his grandma talked about when Todd was a little kid and spent tons of time on the farm, helping to milk cows and do chores, feed animals, and ride in the tractor. It was clear that these memories were very special to his grandparents. I know that they are very special to Todd.

A few days after the party, a package came in the mail. It was a pair of tiny little work gloves. A note attached said they were the ones that Todd wore when he was little and he would hold the baby chicks with them. His grandma had found them and thought he would like to have them. It was a sweet gift, but it left me with a sense of sadness and foreboding.

My grandmother-in-law, the sweetest lady ever, who always treated me like one of her own, who always gave me hugs and told me she loved me, who always complimented me on my articles in the paper, especially my food column, was taken to the hospital last night with a brain aneurism. There is nothing they can do. Her husband has been sitting with her, holding her hand, helping her through the process of dying, a process I  can’t even begin to imagine. It’s only a matter of time.

I just spoke to her the other day. She called me. Hard to believe I will never speak to her again.