A sorrowful interlude

I am currently in Tucson staying at the beautiful Arizona Inn.  I arrived on Saturday and will be catching an early airplane to Nashville tomorrow, Tuesday.  This was an unexpected and unhappy few days.

The day before I left Santa Fe, Sterling and I called his Dad to say hello.  While I was speaking to him he began coughing and it didn't sound good to me.  When I asked him about it, he put me off. It is nothing...
I left Santa fe on Tuesday driving due east toward Asheville;  Sterling and the others left Wednesday, flying to NYC.  Late Wednesday night I got a call from Sterling that his Dad had been admitted to a hospital here in Tucson with probable pneumonia.  He was thinking about repacking and flying out here the next day.

Co-incidentally, my step-son Ed had planned on driving out to Tucson to visit with his grandfather for a few days before meeting up with Willow and spending the long holiday weekend in Sedona.  Sterling was able to reach Ed to tell him about his grandfather's hospitalization.  Ed was able to go to the hospital early Thursday morning and his report to us was encouraging.  The new diagnosis was bronchitis.  Gramps was getting treated with antibiotics.  He seemed to be doing well.  We all felt relief at the encouraging news, but Sterling decided to come out anyway.  At 97, any hospitalization is serious and dangerous.

I called my father-in-law in his hospital room while Ed was there.  My father-in-law seemed confused and incoherent to me.  Ed tried to reassure me, but I didn't like what I heard.

Sterling landed in Tucson late Thursday and checked into the Arizona Inn. Ed joined him there.  On Friday they went back to the hospital.  My father-in-law was worse. He developed a nosocomial infection.  The docs considered moving him to the ICU.  I needed to get to Tucson.

I was checked into a motel in Sikeston, Mo.  Tucson was too far to drive; I couldn't fly with Tramp. Even if I had been willing to check her as baggage on a flight, neither Phoenix nor Tucson allow pets on their tarmac in the summer. It is just too hot and too dangerous. So bringing her on an airplane was not a possibility. There were two daycare and boarding kennels in Nashville that looked OK, but both were already closed for the night.  I could drive to Nashville in about 3.5 hours and catch a flight to Tucson and be there by 7PM Sat night. I decided to book the flight and call the dog kennels in the morning as I was driving and hope for the best.

Friday night Ted and Sterling went to the airport to pick up Willow.  They got a call.  Gramps was worse.  They needed to get to the hospital.  Sterling called me.  As we were talking another call came in from the hospital.  My father-in-law had died.

I did sleep that night.  I was on the road to nashville by 6.  At 9, when the first kennel was open for business, I called.  They were sorry but they were overbooked already and couldn't take another dog - particularly one they did not know.  They recommended I call the other place.  That kennel, Dogtopia, didn't open until 10AM.  I continued to drive pulling over again at 10.  No, they were sorry but they were overbooked as well.  I broke down.  I begged.  The sweet girl told me to wait and put the owner on the phone.  I explained, in my breaking voice, that it was an emergency; that Tramp was an easy dog; that I had a vet's report with all her shots and general health with me since we had been travelling; that I had no options; etc. etc.  She told me to come ahead and that she would evaluate Tramp when we got there.  I was there by 10:30AM.

They looked at me; they looked at Tramp and it was obvious they would help us.  Not only did they help me by taking Tramp, they allowed me to leave my car in their lot; they called a cab for me to the airport and they printed out my boarding passes.   The owner gave me her personal cell phone number and told me to call any time.  They were kind and thoughtful and tried to cheer me up.  Tramp went reluctantly into the small dog playroom and there was a webcam so I could watch her acclimate to her new best friends.

Arizona Inn pool at dusk

Ed, Willow and Sterling met me at the Tucson airport at 6:35PM. We went back to the Arizona Inn and I checked in.  Then we went to dinner.  The three of them had been at Gramps's apartment for a few hours earlier in the day sorting through his possessions.  It is a very difficult thing to do and Sterling told me that really only Willow had been at all productive.  It was a holiday weekend.  It was impossible to reach the people (lawyer, accountant) or institutions (bank, funeral home) that needed to be contacted.

On Sunday afternoon Sterling and I said goodbye to Ed and Willow. They of course, never made it to Sedona. They had to begin the long drive back to LA so that they could be at work on Tuesday.    Sterling and I went back to his Dad's apartment and finished going through his things.  We each had a box of things that would be sent back to our respective apartments.  We had a bag for things to be trashed.  The remainder would either go to charity or be brought over to the resale store at the continuing care facility for others who may need something to purchase.  My box was filled with pictures and memorabilia of Gramps's life.  I am going to have these things scanned and digitized for everyone.  Sterling took the important papers and some knick-knacks that will remind him of his Dad and his life as a boy.

We came back and went over to the Hacienda del Sol, another important hotel in the family history of coming to Tucson, for dinner out in their patio.  Neither of us had much of an appetite.

This morning we were at the funeral home by 7:00am to make all final arrangements.  Gramps will be cremated.  His ashes will go into the Columbarium next to his wife's ashes.  They will remain together for eternity in the town where they came 30 years ago.
Later that morning, I took Sterling to the airport.  He should be back in NYC right about now.  My flight leaves at 7:30 tomorrow morning.  I will be at Dogtopia by 3 if all goes well and Tramp and I should be back on our way to Asheville shortly  afterward.

My thoughts about all of this?  In some ways it may be too soon yet for me to answer that.  But here's what I do know.  My father-in-law was a remarkable man who opened his arms to me the day he met me and was as loving and generous and warm and welcoming as any human being can be to another.  I was immediately family.  And he continued to treat me as family even after his son, my husband, died.  He didn't want me to drift away.  It was an idea that never ever even occured to me.

My father-in-law was also an inspiration and role model for me.  He was self-aware, pragmatic, organized, and considerate.  He accepted life with grace. He knew when it was time to retire; when it was time to move; when it was time to hand off the car keys. When his wife of over 60 years died,  he found a wonderful new companion and developed an important and loving relationship.  As her health declined, as his declined, he accepted each new phase of life with confidence and calm.  He was always prepared.  He had all his affairs in order.  He left excellent instructions.  He didn't want anyone else to have to struggle because he hadn't done his work thoroughly and properly.  I can only hope that I can face and accept my future, whatever it is, with the grace, the self-awareness and the consideration of others that he showed.  He was, in every way, an inspiration.

So, for me there is this personal loss.  A fine man who loved me is no longer a part of my life.  But his death means something else to me as well.  In 1995 I started coming to Tucson with Chip.   Chip's Mom was not well and we came several times when she was hospitalized.  When she died we were here.  And then we started coming every year at Christmas  - the kids, Sterling, Gramps, then  Gramps and Posy, Chip and me.  Later the tradition changed to coming for Thanksgiving instead of Christmas, and, after Chip's death, I would try to come out at least one other time each year.  While Chip was alive we always stayed at the Arizona Inn.  After he died, and when Sterling adopted Mae and Will, the Hacienda del Sol became our Tucson home.  As a family we had so many good times, funny and peculiar times, so many memories made here.  Now that tradition has ended.  For me, it is another part of my life with Chip that has ended.  And I am mourning this loss of tradition just as I am mourning the loss of a dear person.  However as a family we rebuild our holiday celebration, it will be something that Chip was never a part of.  It will be new.  I'm sure it will be fine, but it will be built or put together without the benefit of Chip's perspective.  It will have no past.  I liked the old.  I liked carrying on something Chip began.  It kept him with me. Now I've lost him again.  And my soul aches.

It is unlikely we will come back to Tucson as a family.  For me, that is a terrible loss.  After leaving Sterling at the airport, I drove around Tucson saying goodbye.  I took a very long, hot bath.  I cry a bit as I write all this.  I am glad, I think, that I will have some time back on the road, alone with Tramp, to process all this, to think, to remember.  Quiet will be good.