Christmas 2007 - the Good, the Bad and the Heartbreaking

Ok - I know I haven't posted in a while but I have a very good reason. I'll get to that in a bit. First, let's start out with what happened the Friday before Christmas. I picked up my cousin from the airport right after work and that was the start of a very fun weekend. That night we saw the lights up at Forest Park and had dinner and drinks down in Hartford. The next day we went down to New York City and let me tell you - the Saturday before Christmas is NOT a good day to visit Rockefeller Center. I swear half of Manhattan was present in that one city block. But at least it wasn't freezing cold, which would have made it twice as unpleasant instead of just bumping into a million people to get a good shot of that huge tree. We also spent quite a bit of time in Times Square, stopped at an Irish pub for a few beers, headed to the Charmin holiday bathrooms after that (Free toilets in Times Square! You can't beat that!) visited Madame Tussaud's wax museum and had a great dinner at the Heartland Brewery. All in all it was a great trip. Sunday we spent most of the time closer to home and preparing a bit for Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, the good cheer ended on Christmas Eve. First a little background...

The week earlier, J's grandfather had gone into the hospital mostly for shortness of breath. They discovered that he had a few blood clots in his lungs as well as fluid around his lungs (he had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure a while back) that were making it hard for him to breathe. They gave him medicine to break up the blood clots, but that in turn negatively affected his kidneys. Fortunately, the medicine to remove the fluid from around his lungs appeared to be working rather well. By the end of the week, he was doing pretty well and we were anxious to know whether or not he'd be discharged from the hospital in time to celebrate Christmas with us. Unfortunately, that all took a bad turn on Christmas Eve. His body stopped reacting to the medications. The fluid came back around his lungs and the doctors began talking to the family about hospice care and prepared us for the worst. They pretty much gave him 24-48 hours to live.

The dreaded phone call came at 5:15 am on Christmas morning that he had passed away around 5 am. So Christmas this year was a very somber one for J's family. Despite the fact that his grandfather's health had been declining over the past few months, none of us was prepared to see him go that quickly not to mention on Christmas day. The family had a small private service for him a few days after Christmas and now we are in the process of healing and trying to move forward. And everyone is doing their best to stay strong for J's grandmother, who has not been taking things very well at all.

I think you'll remember my post a while back about Christmas-giving... Well I honestly believe that something was telling me to break out the holiday cheer a little early this year. Thankfully we had the whole family together for Thanksgiving and I'll never forget grandpa's face when he went into the living room after dinner and saw the tree. I'm so glad he got to see it one last time.

Here's a great picture of B w/his great-grandfather C. A. Rowley 1918-2007.