Heartache

I've been skipping along with life.  On a pretty big high from my 45.77 mile performance at Howl at the Moon.  Mentally I had everything all planned out for my blog posts this week as I continue to tell you about Howl.  It's a very busy week as well.  The kids started school today.  I have a regional training coming up in a month for the Y....LOTS to do to prep for that.  I start my new position at CSC next week.  Lots going on to keep me on my toes and moving forward.  I could handle it....I felt like I can handle anything after 45.77 miles.  Until the phone rang......

It was my husband's Aunt June.  I love Aunt June!  Always happy to see & hear from her.  I didn't even think twice when I answered the phone.  Come to think about it I'm not sure why I answered the phone at all.  Caller id said Illinois Caller and I noticed it had an 847 area code.  I'm one of "those people" who very rarely answers the phone unless I recognize the number and know exactly who it is.  Who knows what compelled me to answer in a heart beat.  I was just super excited to hear Aunt June on the other end of the line.

She let me know right away that she was not calling for a good reason.  I uttered the dreaded "oh.....no....".  Even then I still didn't quite expect to hear what she said next.  Papa Jim (as he has always affectionately been called by us/our kids) had passed away.  Papa Jim is my husband Jim's dad and he is gone.  My Jim wasn't even home at the time.  I had to then turn around and make the same call to my husband and tell him the news.  There is a lot of details that I just am not ready to divulge right now.  To be brief, Papa Jim was only 62 years old & died suddenly of a heart attack.

Papa Jim lived in California, always has since I married Jim.  For many years he visited out here or us out there frequently.  In more recent years we had not seen/personally visited with him, but we talked often on the phone.  Often meaning, 4-6 times a year.  I know we just talked to him on Father's Day.

When I married into this family I heard many, many stories of this man.  Most of them were not good.  Ok, I don't think any of them were good.  At least not from the other side of the family.  To be fair, what I know to be true really is bad.  As a young adult, Papa Jim was ruled by alcohol and made a lot of bad, stupid decisions.  It really is horrible what he did & put people through.

People change though.  Not always, but in this case he did.  I'm sure too little, too late for some people.  For the most part my husband Jim grew up without his father present.  Later in life, as an adult, Jim connected back up with his dad and their relationship was restored.  By time I married Jim and met my father-in-law (and that whole other side of the family) I was met by a great man who always treated me with love and respect.  He was also an excellent grandpa who loved to play with his grand kids.  He was the get on the floor and play with the kids grandpa.  If he wasn't here and was on the phone he always asked to talk to each grand kid to see how they were doing.

No man is perfect, but I personally can't complain about what I was given as a father-in-law.  I was honored to call him Dad.

So suddenly my/our lives are turned upside down.  My husband Jim is the next of kin and everything defaults to him to take care of business.  This is un-charted territory for us.  We've never been through this before.  Now, in addition to, the busy craziness of our lives we have this to deal with.  It's pretty fair to say I'm heart broken.  I'm an emotional crybaby anyway...so guess who has been bawling off and on....yep, ME!

I will try my best to carry on with life considering the circumstances.  Yesterday after we got the news I packed up the kids and headed to the pool.  It was the last day of summer break.  Before I even got the phone call I had told the kids we were going to the pool.  My friends could tell something was off with me.  I talked about it some, filling in details with them.  Then it felt good to talk about other things.  It felt good to be distracted by the hot sun & splashing of the pool.  I ran this morning.  Which, by the way, it's hard to bawl and cry WHILE running.  It sure makes one run faster though.  I had to teach my yogalates class this morning too.  Tears are easy to hide while doing certain stretches/poses.  I took advantage of that.  I felt pretty cried out by time I had to get the kids off to school and spend the morning working at the Y on training stuff.  Then I had a horrible afternoon crying non stop.  It ebbs and flows.  I do what I can and carry on.  We'll see where it goes from here....