Grandpa Doc is dying in the hospital from a huge and sudden infection of liver cancer. I only found out about it on Tuesday, and at that point they thought he had six months left. It's three days later and his estimated expectancy has reduced to four days. Mom and all her siblings are at the hospital now and Tyler and I were going to drive out there tonight but Grandpa is so weak that more visitors would probably be overwhelming. Mom is devastated. She's been texting us updates, like twice a day, usually new (shorter) expectancy estimates. She sent me a picture of Grandpa this morning. His midsection is so swollen. Like five months pregnant, and his skin is yellow. He can't talk very much, but he can smile.
This was the least expected news I could imagine. Grandpa has been running 2-3 marathons a year since he turned 60, and he's 72. His father died at age 109. All of us were expecting him to reach at least 100.
Lately he's been doing a lot of humanitarian service in Ethiopia, flying out there for six months at a time to do neural surgery and train other surgeons practically for free. Tyler shadowed him a year ago, and Mom did EMT training so that she could become a nurse, eventually fly to Ethiopia with him on his trips and assist in his work. Now she's in Saint George assisting him in his last few days.
My mom has always been a Daddy's girl. When she was in high school, she would spend like four hours a day on piano, going to lessons or rehearsing, and every night when he would get back from work Grandpa would lay on the floor under the piano and listen to Mom's music. In terms of love languages, piano-playing was Mom's for Grandpa. Now all of her kids play piano, and when we'd visit Grandpa we'd play for him.
I remember one time when all the cousins were visiting the grandparents, Grandpa planned and took us on a hike at 6 am. I was probably twelve years old, and I was freaking tired and very grumpy. And I made the hike worse for everyone. I was tantruming, I was crying, yeah. I was an idiot. Grandpa pulled me aside afterward, and I thought I was in trouble for being such a brat, but he personally apologized for the hard time I had and he blamed himself for planning it at a bad time and asked me how he could help me. It was the most Christ-like thing he could have said. I don't remember very many other personal one-on-one experiences with Grandpa, and I regret that. He was so accomplished and such a golden guy.
I lost my job. Lancaster and Santa Clarita weren't selling enough so they decided to downsize the current number of sales reps, move them all to Lancaster, and then move in some new employees from an outside company to take Santa Clarita. There are no spots for girls in Lancaster, so I'm moving to La Canada this afternoon and I'm hunting for a new job. I called Brother Johnson asking about the orchard this morning, and it's possible I'll work for him again. Justin might move into his grandpa's house and work in La Canada so I won't have to make thirty-minute trips to see him.
I'm dating Justin Cornwall, guys. I know, right. He's great.
Anyway,
Banksy.
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