Email: (from me to the mom of J Jr.’s school friend)

Have been meaning to email you and am finally getting to it!  Just wanted to apologize for J Jr. missing [your son’s] party.  We’ve had a whirlwind month of my dad being diagnosed with brain cancer and then surgery for that and hospital and rehab stays.  A few days after [your son’s} party, we realized we’d completely forgotten about it in the midst of everything else that was going on.  J Jr. was disappointed to have missed it!  Just wanted to let you know.  We hope [your son] had a fun day celebrating : )

Take care,

Kari

 

Nana’s Notes:

Happy Birthday!

I brought balloons & made a cherry cake.  Kari & kids came & brought the cake & lunch – a cheeseburger for Papa.  He enjoyed that a lot!

Had lunch outside & cake in the family room.  Kari downloaded some of Papa’s favorite songs [from The Statler Brothers, Don Walser, Johnny Cash, Jim Reeves] on the iPad for his birthday.  He was pleased.

Had PT & OT therapy in the morning for an hour, speech therapy after lunch.  He was very tired after that!  Discouraged & said he didn’t want visitors to come except me & Kari (& grandkids only for 1/2 hour).  It tires him out too much & is hard to talk & listen.

He talked with Kari in afternoon about treatment & said he didn’t really want to do it – not worth it. Kari shed some tears.

 

My Reflections:

It’s Papa’s birthday.

Celebrating at rehab isn’t ideal, but Nana and I still want to make it special for Papa.  So Nana makes a cherry cake with cream cheese frosting (Papa’s birthday treat of choice is always Nana’s homemade cherry pie, but that’s just too difficult for him to chew right now).  And the boys and I pick up lunch for everyone on our way over (we go all-out and get Papa a cheeseburger – think this is the most excited we’ve seen him over a meal in a looooong while!).

 

J would have joined in on the festivities, but he’s away on a fishing trip that’s been planned for months.  He catches a big one (to honor Papa’s big day, of course):

 

We take the main event inside – the cake!  And it proves to not disappoint (in Papa’s reaction to it & its yumminess factor):

 

After eating our cake, the boys occupy themselves with the foosball or ping pong table several feet away.  They’re out of ear-shot and I take the opportunity, sitting there at the table with Papa, to ask him if he’s still considering taking his own life (because this is standard conversation at one’s birthday celebration, right???).  But I’m concerned and need to know where he’s at with his thinking on this.  And he tells me no, he’s not thinking like that anymore; he’s willing to press on.  And I breathe a sigh of relief, because as much as I’m able, I can tell he’s being sincere.  He has a will to live.  Yet another reason to celebrate on this day!

With lunch and cake and foosball complete, we round out the celebration in Papa’s room, the big boys showing Papa their skills at Cut the Rope, a favorite game of their’s on Papa’s iPad:

 

Little M tries to hold out as long as he can, but you know what they say:

 

All in all, a good day celebrating Papa growing another year older!