Learning to Cope & Comfort Together

I posted the title yesterday because I wanted this post to be date accurate. Yesterday my 97 year old grandfather passed away. He was hospitalized last Thursday for pneumonia, but everyone seemed optimistic that he would pull through without a problem in three to four days. I, however, saw it as the beginning of the end and took the news rather hard. Something told me that this was it. Kyle walked in almost immediately after I hung up the phone, and automatically switched in to super husband mode. 

As the days passed, the doctors in the hospital discovered more and more problems. He had a massive infection on top of the pneumonia and was having difficulty swallowing and breathing. As the week went on our personal prayers changed from wanting him to get better to letting him not suffer and comforting the family. Kyle would sit with me every time I got off the phone and comfort me.

Yesterday morning they put a feeding tube in to help him get nutrients and medicine. At noon all of the kids were called to agree on a Do Not Resuscitate  order. I called my mom on the way home from work to hear the latest update and she said that he was turning around. His vitals were improving and she was going back up there the next day instead of last night to be with him. I got home and one of my good friends came over to sit with me because I had been bummed all week. About 10 minutes after she left, I got the call saying that he had stopped breathing and passed. I ran to the door, opened it, and Kyle was there. He had just gotten home from work and immediately just hugged me and wouldn't let me go. 

My grandfather was 97 years old. This was only the second time in his entire life to stay in a hospital. He still walked over a mile a day and lived at home. He still had a super sharp memory and could tell you stories from his childhood, historical facts and random information on every former President of the United States. During his lifetime he held numerous work positions. He was a minister for years. He was a teacher of just about every subject at one point or another, but history was always his favorite. He was a football coach for a season, even though he had never seen a game before. He married people, buried people, taught them, and lived to see his great grandchildren. There was a part of me that honestly thought that he would never die. I knew this was impossible, but he was such an extraordinary person who lived such a long life that I thought maybe he was special somehow. It is so incredibly sad and hard to let him go, but at the same time, how can you be upset when he had the life he did? I'm so thankful that I found the gospel before I had to deal with this blow... it really is a great source of comfort in itself. 

I don't know what I would do without Kyle in my life. He has been an amazing source of comfort on  several occasions since we got married. Both of us have had a grandparent pass away while we were dating. Both of us had no idea how to comfort the other at the time. I really think that we have grown even closer since the wedding and we have such a strong understanding of each other now that he knew exactly what I needed. He just sat with his arms around me in silence while I dealt with the initial blow. When I calmed down, we went and picked up comfort food from this small local restaurant. By the end of the night, he even got a small smile out of me. I am just so grateful for my husband and love him more than anything in the world. So if nothing good can come from this situation, at least I was reminded of that.