I hope you are all enjoying Spring sunshine and blue skies where ever you are and that you are all happy and healthy and loving life!
Once again, there is so much that I could blog about but there is only one thing that I feel that I should type about. I have checked with my hubby and he is happy for me to do so. Today's update is about my father in law.
Last Saturday, after the charity challenge, I got home at about 7 pm, had a glass of chilled Prosecco and set about telling various family members about the event. Before I could go into too much detail, the phone rang. It was the nursing home telling us that my father in law was unwell with a temperature and that the doctor had been called out to him. The rest of the evening and overnight we were on standby in case the phone rang and we needed to get to the home quickly. Fortunately, that didn't happen.
The next day a chest infection was diagnosed and medication prescribed. Combinations of sons, daughters in law and grandchildren visited over the following days and reported little change from his recent condition. Whilst being elderly and frail and extremely tired, he was always happy to accept visitors and made an effort to converse and be interested in any news.
Then, quite out of the blue, he took a turn for the worse on Wednesday afternoon. He slipped into a deep sleep and passed away very late that evening. He spent the best part of his last afternoon and early evening surrounded by his boys which would have given him an enormous amount of comfort. I hope he was able to hear the joking and the gentle teasing that went on as the sons tried to maintain an air of normality and calm around their ailing Dad as, by this time, it was obvious that Dad was not going to be able to overcome this final hurdle.
Later that night, after everyone had left and all was calm, my father in law finally drew his last breath. His 85 years on this planet came to a close.
There is no way that I would ever try to put into words the feelings of anyone else involved in this situation and these thoughts and feelings are purely mine.
I feel incredibly proud to have had such a strong relationship with my father in law. We became very close over the past 5 years or so especially. His beloved wife, who he had looked after with such dedication and love, was ill for several years before her passing 2 years ago. Once she had left him his whole world was so different. He had to move house. He was no longer able to drive. The world must have seemed a very different place all of a sudden and I think it was a world that he found harder and harder to be a part of. All of the things that he used to love - his garden, going to the pub, driving to the cricket club - all of these things were no longer things he could do without someone else being involved. Very slowly he lost interest in 'life' it seemed. He didn't listen to the radio. He found reading difficult because he couldn't retain the information about the characters. He didn't read the papers although he did watch the news before bed every night.
Some things did still interest him though....anything on television to do with antiques ('cash in the attic' was one of his favourite phrases), bizarrely, Big Brother (!) , his shares which he checked every day and the lottery which he did every week, twice a week, because 'he couldn't NOT do it'. He had been doing the same numbers for years and years including his wife's Thunderball and two of the grandchildren's selections and was adamant that, if he didn't do them, they would win. It was almost an obsession!
My father in law was an Army man through and through. His life was led with military precision even after he retired. His shoes were always polished until they shone and he always liked to wear a jacket and tie whenever he went out - albeit to the local shops. He also always took his pipe, his 'baccy and his matches wherever he went. It became a bit of a 'thing'. Whenever he left his flat he would pat all of his pockets to make sure that he had everything - 'pipe, 'baccy, matches'. That still makes me smile.
It was his role as a grandfather that I think gave him the most pleasure. He adored his grandchildren. When my daughter was born he was overjoyed because he had only had sons. He was thrilled to have a girl in the family at last. When my son was born he was thrilled because there was a male to carry on the family name.
As the children got older he adored reading them stories and then was mesmerised when they were able to read stories to him. He taught them about flowers and plants in his garden. He made them pancakes as a special treat. He was so proud of them. It didn't matter what they did or didn't do, he loved them and they loved him in return. He never raised his voice to them or got cross (as far as I know!!) and never, in later years, put them under any pressure to visit him. He just always wanted to know that they were happy and safe and working hard. It is very hard for them at the moment to imagine that they aren't going to see him anymore. They are all adults now and they still love him as they did when they were little.
As for me, my father in law accepted me into his family without question even though I came with a failed marriage behind me and two young children as an added bonus. He was always interested in our family life and the dramas that were often going on. He didn't judge me when I made mistakes and only offered advice if I asked for it. He was supportive. He was generous and our happiness was his prime concern.
Latterly, as he became frailer, he relied on me more for general chit chat than anything else. He was always so pleased when I visited and always had a list of things that he wanted me to do or that he wanted to talk about. We had many long talks about all manner of things. He especially wanted to talk about family as he found such conversations a little easier to have with me than with the boys and I was able to tell him all the bits that other people 'forgot' to tell him!
Although his death has come as a shock in someways, I think that, in the back of our minds, we knew that he couldn't carry on as he was. His sons did everything that they could, gave him every chance to try again each time that he came out of hospital. He had a family member visit him almost every single day and he was given every encouragement to keep going but the fight left him. He had had enough.
So now we have 2 weeks until the funeral and plans are taking shape. It is important to all of us that he gets the send off that he deserves.
It is going to take some time to get used to the fact that he is no longer with us but we will get used to it as everyone always does when someone dies.
I would like to finish by saying that it was a privilege to have been a part of my father in law's life and I thank him, from the bottom of my heart, for being the wonderful grandfather that he was. Rest in peace.
Until next time xxx
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