I randomly found myself on a plane on Sunday night up to my parent's place in Northern BC for a 36-hour $800 blitz trip... it was the most stress-free visit I've had with my family in years!
Rewind to Friday night, I get a call from my lovely cousin, Lou, that starts out with "don't panic, GG is fine but..." that's never a good intro to ANY call, but I took it like a champ until... "Grampa R fell and broke his hip". Shit.
GG is my Grandmother on my dad's side. She is my everything. She's been my biggest supporter and my best friend for years. When I moved to Vancouver from Northern BC she took me right under her little 5'2" wing and I've been there ever since. I lived with her one summer in University and between planting tomatoes and drinking tea, it may have been one of the best summers I had through my entire university career! GG (we call her that because Lou's baby, T, couldn't say Great Gramma, and GG said with a French accent 'Jzee Jzeeeh' just suits her) is 89 and I never want to think of a day where she isn't in my life.
Grampa R is GG's 'partner'. Get this - she's 89 (as is he) and has a boyfriend. Did I mention that she is not only amazing, but she's my personal hero as well?! Good work, GG!!! The two of them used to go on cruises and when asked how long they've been married they'd say (with a little cute old person giggle) 107 years. He was married to his first wife for 55 and my GG was married to Papa for 52. It just cracks them up. The best part of the whole story? They actually went to grade school together and GR used to have a crush on GG. He went away to war and my Papa stayed to work as a meteorologist 'cause he wasn't healthy enough to go (pneumonia took 1/2 his lungs when he was a kid), so he got the girl. Lucky for me!
Grampa R is now GG's primary care-giver. He has infinite patience and love for her. She is slowly becoming less and less able to take care of herself and her cognitive function is diminishing rapidly. Despite her sometimes sudden snappy mood swings (that never happened before her stroke last September) he dotes on her like a teenager swooning with puppy love - I like that. I want that when I'm 89.
So... back to Friday... Grampa R is notoriously frugal and decided that instead of paying someone to clean the carpets in the condo he just sold, that he'd go ahead and do it himself. Did I mention that he's 89 and just recently suffered from a stroke that left him favouring his left side? No? Hmm, well, he is. He is a bit ridiculous, as much as I love him! So, here's GR, on his hands and knees cleaning carpets... he lifts up a queen sized bed with metal frame, props it against the wall and then proceeds to clean underneath it. Surprise, surprise, the bed falls right on top of him. Turns out he broke his hip somewhere between the metal frame hitting his back, the bed falling on his already-falling body and hitting the floor. Wow.
He had major surgery on Sunday, meaning he can't look after GG, so there I found myself flying up to Northern BC with her to get her settled in my aunt and uncle's house for a week, then my parent's for a week. Back to work on Tuesday meant I had a whopping 36 hours at home with the family.
So, this post was supposed to be about my stress-free visit, but has turned into a mini-series on GG and Grampa R! To sum it up we did the following:
-drank wine
-visited
-sun tanned
-moved a hottub with 3 people and fence posts (very Egyptian of us!)
-planned where the hottub will be set-up (and ready for Christmas)
-drank more wine
-planned our upcoming 1 week camping trip (if I survive I get to cross one more thing off of my Bucket List!)
-rolled down a hill running on top of full-sized 750lbs hay bales (see hay bale below)
-ate fresh saskatoon berries off the bush (only where the bears hadn't already eaten them all)
-ate dinner by the river at my sister& bro-in-law's new property
-drank just a little more wine
-ate brownies cooked over a camp stove
-enjoyed my family immensely (really!)
