Boy oh boy, you folks are all incredible!
I just finished reading all your comments and thoroughly loved them.
Thumper man started with the song, I think, and you all chimed in, Aunt Shirley can't see but can take pictures of hummingbirds in a hurricane, and Ponzi goes to the dentist to fulfill his pain requirement. Oh, and nice Marvin, Ponzi.
Oh, again: great poem Ponz, one time, twenty years ago when Diane and I hung around the little tavern that she worked at we rewrote The Night Before Christmas using all the "regulars" that came in at the time.
On New Years for their party, right before the countdown we got everybody to quiet down and pulled the plug on the juke box so Diane could get up and read it for everybody.
Went over very well and had to so a sequel the next year.
again, nice work!
I will now begin the callouts for every one of the posts that came in while we were gone.
just kidding
But again, really appreciated them all, and I see a few new people checking in, welcome to you all, next time when I;'m caught up I won't ignore your posts.
Which brings us to the report itself:
I honestly did not know what was the right thing to do, here, concerning this report.
How do I gloss over the fact one of the greatest men I have ever met in my life passed away?
I have talked it over with Diane, and we both thought that the complete truth was the only way to go, even though some folks may not think we made the right choices. All i can tell you is that he degenerated quickly from dementia, very quickly.
Last February, he was still living at his home, with an upstairs bedroom, coming to family gatherings and joining in conversations. In March, after a couple of falls, he went into a nursing home.
We saw him a couple days before the trip, and even asked the head nurse who really knows his condition her opinion on us leaving. Of course she was vague, not wanting to commit herself, but she thought he could last from two weeks to possibly two more years, "Go ahead" she told us, you won't change what is to be anyway."
At this point, he was only speaking in one word sentences, if at all, and barely recognized us. Well, maybe he did, he just couldn'dt really find a way to communicate with us, I don't know. It broke our hearts to see him this way, we just hated to see him have to suffer this way.
It wasn't fair, not for such a good man, and I hoped the Lord would call him home soon.
What I'm trying to say is that his passing was not a total shock, and after our first feelings of loss, there was also a feeling of relief, that he is now out of suffering and enjoying the fruits of his belief in Christ as his Savior.
But still, how do you slip something like that in a trip report? At first I wasn't even going to try. But in the last few months, we saw him ten times more than we ever did, and I often told him funny stories sitting in the courtyard of the home by the fountain, Disney trip report stories of course. ANd even though he couldn't comment and form the words he wanted to say, he could understand, and laughed along with a lot of them. Who knows, now maybe he'll be able to actually read them.
So I guess as far as the report goes, it will be business as usual, when we get to that part I'll deal with it best that I can, and I'll talk more about him when we get to that part.
I DO have lots of resort pictures, in digital and on film and let me tell you, if this was a National Lampoon Vacation Movie, it would have been rejected, plot wise for being too ridiculous. What I'm saying is we could both have ended up dead ourselves, more than a couple of times!
So give me a bit of timi to get the film developed and catch up on stuff that needs catching up on, (where did all these flies come from in the house?) and we will get that Santa Fe back on the road where it belongs. (and into the shop)
we shall see you real soon!
