Last month we experienced the first death of a close family member. Pat is my grandma's husband. He had been battling kidney problems for about 8 years. Since then, he would have to go to dialysis 3 times a week and sit there for about 5 hours or more each time, while his blood went through the machine. When he started going, which was around 2001 or so, we could see a difference in his diet, his health and how weak he started getting. During the last few months, he fell down and had to be taken to the hospital, which he DID NOT like at all. He is from the generation of people who believes that he could heal himself with mind over matter rather than going to the professionals. It finally caught up to him and he could not save himself with that mind frame. On April 22, he was taken to the hospital one last time. His lungs hurt, his legs hurt and you could tell when you looked at him he was not much longer for this world. The hospital staff kept him on the machines for about a week. I went twice, his mother, sister, brother in law, my family, my grandparents, my aunts, uncles, cousins, my brother all went in a saw him for one last time. It was unreal...seriously, like it wasn't really happening. The worst part of it for me was "the talk" from the doctor the night before he died. I really didn't want to hear what I was about to hear but the doctor was really genuine about it. He explained to us in the nicest way possible what usually happens when you take someone off of life support. He said most of the time the patient will die when family members aren't around which is usually in the middle of the night to make it easier on the family. That night I stayed for about 6 hours just waiting. I had no idea what was going to happen. One by one, people had to go home. I was the last to leave just because I thought grandma needed some company. I really hoped that he didn't die while I was there...it would have haunted me for a long time and I really don't know why. I drove home that night just thinking about all the stuff we had done over the years at their house. I really didn't know Pat all that well because he kept to himself most of the time and really didn't talk all that much. I can tell you one thing, he was very creative in the things that he made. Most of the stuff around the house is all the things he created. It was weird to go over there the next day and to see him not sitting in his chair sleeping. It was weird going through his shop to get rid of things that he had saved. It was weird to think that he was the last person to touch his tools and stuff in his shop. He will never be at family functions ever again, there will be no garden ever again and the most strangest thing though was we will never hear his voice again. The next day we kept calling grandma for an update. The last thing I had heard from her was that his heart rate was slowing down, which meant he had hours to live. After practice on April 29th, my mom called to tell me he had passed that evening at 4:50. My heart sank....
