Grandpa Jerry

I was off work for 12 days.  The plan was we would drive up to Madison on Sunday (12/22), meet my parents and spend a few days visiting Grandpa Jerry and then we would all drive down to St. Louis on Christmas Even (Tuesday) and spend Christmas and the new week hanging out together.  Everything changed when my dad got a call from his aunt on Saturday (12/21) telling us that Grandpa had been rushed to the hospital via ambulance and we needed to get there quickly.  So Brad changed his schedule, Sarah got a flight and Marshann and Marissa got flights and we all rushed to Wisconsin to be with Grandpa.  

 

One of his last wishes was to have all 4 of his granddaughters together (something that had never happened before). 

 

We changed our travel plans and stayed until Christmas so that everyone could be together.  This required a little extra effort from Santa, but thankfully he found us.  That day the Warlick family drove back to St. Louis because Brad had to work on 12/26.

 

 

On December 26 Grandpa passed away surrounded by people who loved him.  I repacked our suitcases and made the return trip (this time without Brad) on 12/27.  We spent the next few days cleaning out a lifetime of stuff from Grandpa's house.  There were happy moments, there were silly moments and there were sad moments, but we were all together and that would have made Grandpa happy.

 

After the funeral on Monday (12/30) I packed the boys into the car and headed back to St. Louis.  While my heart wanted to stay with my family my head knew that I needed to give my boys a chance to play and be little boys for a while after spending most of the previous 10 days in a hospital, a car and a hectic house.

 When we finally made it home late Monday night all of my boys were happily reunited.

It definitely was not the best Christmas we have ever had, but I got to spend a lot of time with people who I otherwise wouldn't have seen and that is definitely something.