You see, he was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus Sunday of the long weekend. It was definitely a hard thing to hear. He would have been 87 this month and had been healthy. The doctor even said he had a 70 year old brain in a 87 year old body. I have learned so much from my Grandaddy and didn't really realize just how much I was going to miss him.
He passed away on June 14th. The hospital had released him because they had done all they could do for him. So, he had been admitted to a nursing home. But he refused to stay there, you see, my Grandaddy is definitely where I get my stubborn streak. He decided the moment he was admitted to the nursing home, he was done. He wouldn't take the oxygen they wanted him to be on. So he passed in his sleep during the night.
I think the hardest thing for me, is I never got the chance to tell him something. Oh, I told him I loved him and spent as much time as possible with him in his last days. In fact, we all did. But I never got the chance to tell him we were going to name the baby after him. We found out that first week Grandaddy was in the hospital that we were expecting. We wanted to wait to tell everyone because of what happened last time, but mom went ahead and told Grandaddy just because we weren't for sure if he would be there if we waited to much longer.
As I've mentioned before, Grandaddy was a veteran of WWII. So, he had a military funeral. It was very moving! To watch the respect the officers gave to the casket was amazing to me. Here they were in the middle of June dressed completely in their blues, sweat dripping off of them, but they were still so respectful.
At first, I really had a hard time with Grandaddy's passing, but I'm at peace because I know he is not suffering anymore.
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