LizaWasHere

I don’t know why my blog suddenly looks different.

It wasn’t my plan, I don’t like it, and I don’t know how to fix it.

Not only that, but I am feeling tired and cranky and sad and I don’t have the brainpower to even come up with a plan for how to fix it later.

Threevil meltdowns aside, we had a nice weekend, with visits to Grandma & Grandpa’s house, a pancake breakfast at school, church, and the dinosaur museum. I got a fabulous bonus visit with an extremely dear friend who lives in Virginia, but was here for a quick weekend trip.

I also got the strange experience of discovering that her 9 year old daughter has no memory of me. The same 9 year old who was the flower girl in my wedding, with whom we spent the Christmas I was pregnant with Noah, and whom I first met when she was 3 weeks old. And whose brother I met when he was less than 24 hours old. Annual-ish visits are not enough.

I am also sad and cranky and feeling unsettled because my grandfather is dying.

He is my last remaining grandparent. My paternal grandparents died a few weeks apart from one another when I was a junior in high school, and my maternal grandmother died in 2002.

Grandpapa has had Alzheimers, and been in ever worsening shape over the last few years. He was a cheerful, functional, and very sweet man who had no idea who I was, or who Noah was, when we visited him 2.5 years ago. A few years before that, he came to my sister’s wedding, and had a great time. I’m not sure he knew exactly who we all were, but he’d grown up in Manhattan and I think he liked being back in his boyhood home area. And a few years before that, he celebrated his 90th birthday with a dinner and dancing cruise in Tampa. He loved the dancing and all the pretty girls, and I think he knew us, at least some of the time.

But this last year, especially, has been rough.

When Grandpapa was recently hospitalized for pneumonia, and a lung biopsy revealed lung cancer, we all feared for the worst.

I bought tickets to take Josie down to Florida tomorrow. Even that might be too late, says Mom, who called a few minutes ago to report that his blood pressure and breathing have both taken a very serious downturn.

AND on top of all that, we still don’t know whether or not Jill has to go on a “work detail” out of state for 4 weeks, starting MONDAY. So we haven’t done anything to prep Noah for it, not wanting to falsely alarm him. But hello? What kind of company can’t tell people things like that say … 2 weeks in advance? Grumble grumble crank seethe.