lauramcewan:

it was one of those lovely summer evenings. We won our baseball game, Karl struck out once, and then hit a double, played first base and catcher, and his grandparents and his former teacher (and Jayne's) was there to watch.

Katie and I drove home in the van, while Roy had the other tow, taking them to stop at Taco Bell for some late dinner.

Later than dusk, but not yet full dark, the sky held eastern clouds that whispered and considered thunderstorm, but the west instead fell rosy pink, the coast range in silhouette against it as the last of the day slid away.

Indigo Girls on the cd player had Katie and I singing "Leaving" mournfully yet happily, and I drove into the garage, unlocked my front door, and snagged the phone as my aunt began talking to the answering machine.

My grandfather has asked for no surgeries. No amputations, no heart interventions. He wants to live the life he has left, not in a nursing home and not in a hospital, trying to recover from the invasions.

My aunt is trying so hard to keep it together. She and my uncle trade off living at home and living in CC with my grandparents. My younger uncle has five kids and three fosters of his own, but they do what they can. My older uncle lives up here near me. My father has died.

My aunt bears the brunt and it's she, the only daughter, watching her daddy die before her eyes.

I've been there.

It's not for my grandfather that my tears tonight fall. It's for her.

Give a thought to Robert and Betty, and to my aunt Diddy.

We don't know anything except, we wait.