Trevor's Grandpa Has Gone Home, Reunited in the Perfect World Options

[Gretta's Mom]

Hello all friends of Bobbie, Trevor, Gretta, and/or Rufus

Another of our "people" family has gone to the Perfect World - Bobbie's 86-year old father.

When Bobbie first got cancer, her dad spent a winter with her and her husband in Baltimore so that we wouldn't have to endure another northern Minnesota winter. While he was here, he had the second of three strokes, the side effects of which would eventually take his life. He was so sad when he left Baltimore that he would have to go into assisted living instead of back to his house. A few months later, his name came to the top of the waiting list at the Veterans Home, where he had spent thousands of volunteer hours after my mother's death in 2003. Like our beloved animals, we are all going to die of something someday and August 1 was dad's day to go home to God, his wife, Bobbie and all the most-loved dogs. He was fascinated by my half black lab/half Newfie because the dog could sit in a perfect sphynx pose for such a long time without moving a muscle. Dad thought Rufus looked just like a sculpture.

During Bobbie's last months Ii moved to Baltimore to be with her. When she went home, I stayed here to live (I love the city). For a long time I could talk to dad on the phone - albeit in very short conversations and under the eagle eye of our middle sister who took it upon herself to guard dad from all contact she didn't approve. Although I bought him the finest pair of hearing aids on the planet (from Germany) he and his caregivers could never get the hang of adjusting them so they became just brass-colored baubles. finally we couldn't talk on the phone at all. So I wrote him "picture letters" - basically Power-Point-like single sheets with a design or picture and some 36-point type words. He had to have them read to him and I suspect many of them were not. But a person can only do what they can do - and if interference takes place somewhere else, one is powerless. At least one can look oneself in the mirror with some honor.

I was blessed to be able to spend two days alone with dad in what would end up being the last week of his earthly life. He was cogent and could hear if I spoke slowly and directly into the hearing aid. We were blessed to be able to have all the conversations that some people never get to have and then spend the rest of their lives regretting.

Please read between the lines or contact me privately to talk about my not being able to be with dad as he passed or at his funeral, which is tomorrow. Send me a private message and I will send you my personal e-mail. Today (his memorial) and tomorrow are going to be the saddest days of my life - prevented from honoring dad with my presence at his last hurrah and seeing and touching his body and kissing him good bye for the last time. But my dad was about gentleness, peace, humility and grace, NOT about three-ring circuses conducted by someone whose mind is not right. Dad is in heaven and he knows what the real story is.

Thank you for being there for Bobbie and me as we have both had the worst two years of our lives. She is safe, happy, healthy, carefree and basking in the love of God and the precious animals who lived with her here on earth. My father is with God, his family and his many, many friends from all over the world. They have made it. The rest of us are still with the Pilgrim on his wearisome Progress.

God bless all of you and please keep posting about the precious animals who are in your life. Without Lightning Strike I would surely be in a mental hospital somewhere.

Gretta and Rufus's mom

[Gretta's Mom]

Dear, dear dad,

My hero, my best friend, my constant cheerleader. my wise man, my best storyteller in the world. In our little family, I think we understood each other best. I know you and Bobbie loved each other best and I have nothing but happiness about that. I was more like a son to you than a daughter. I went to college, got good jobs, supported my sisters when they needed it. I SO enjoyed all our talks about what was going on in our work worlds. Especially after mom died, we were the adults in the family. I am. as the spiritual says, "almost to the ground" that Bobbie died. How wonderful that you could live with her for those months. I am so sorry that our middle sister made it impossible for me to be with you at the end of your life on earth and to come to your last ceremony. But our minds running on the same channel makes me know that you, in heaven knew exactly what was going on and why I did what I did and that it didn't mean I didn't love you, that I just didn't want to turn your last ceremony on earth into a three-ring circus or nuclear war. How could I grieve you under those circumstances?

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me your name. I carry it with me and it reminds me of you whenever I hear it called. And it also reminds me to try to live like you did - so that I, too, could say at the end of my life that I wanted to be remembered as a kind and humble man.

I love you, dad and I always will. (And Rufus is now doing his sphynx pose in heaven. I hope you get to see him and it must be so much fun to be able to talk to him and Gretta.)

There is a mass for Bobbie this morning. Stan is working so I am going by myself. Sister Jude gives me the evil eye every time she sees me so I just smile like a happy idiot. That church is giving me a very wide berth since I wrote my lengthy, scholary letter to the Archbishop proving with the Vatican's own words that Father Aitken and Sister Jude were WRONG, WRONG, WRONG not to let me sing my song at Bobbie's funeral. Oh well, she can hear me sing it from heaven.

I love you dad. You are the best father anyone could have.

Gretta and Rufus's mom