My Story: Last Days

Tuesday, April 03, 2018

Last Days

Sunday morning we woke up to an Easter Egg Hunt that Gram did for the boys. She hid 24 eggs throughout her backyard filled with "pennies, dimes, and quarters."

(Those ended up being Shaeffer-version pennies, dimes and quarters! And made of green bills.)

Gram was such a good hider, the boys had a challenging time finding the last few eggs!

We had breakfast of fruit, grapefruit and "Alligator."

(A yummy sweet flatbread, pecan breakfast treat. I'd never heard it called that before but it was a lot like cinnamon roll flavor.)

We watched Conference and then I made Conference Soup for lunch (Traditions!)

and Marty and Erin joined us.

We watched the second session, and then I took a nap.

Which I think I did every day while in Phoenix. (Vacations!)

Then the rest of the Shaeffer clan joined us for a Mexican Easter Dinner -- Mahacas Tacos.

I enjoyed getting time to really visit with everyone.

Monday morning we hiked Camelback and Gram and Kristin came with us. I was impressed that Gram was such a trooper, hiking for a good distance until it became too steep and dangerous.

The rest of us hiked to the top on the Echo Trail.

It was steep, steep, steep with lots of climbing over rocks. But it was fun!

Chris and Kristin practically ran to the top. Nick, Dan and I were a little bit slower. But we still made it confidently. We passed several people on the trail that turned around.

It took us about 1:30 up and 1 hour down. Probably should have started a little earlier as it got really hot! But not as hot as it could have been, I guess! We also took an Uber so we didn't have to worry about parking. The lot fills up very early. You can park on side streets but it can be a long walk to the beginning of the trail.

Handrails in some sections where the rock is more like cliff.

At one point a mom was saying she didn't think she could go any further. She was trying to climb up a steep rock and couldn't find a foot hold. And was obviously exhausted.

Her young son (about 14) stood above her saying, "You've got this, Mom! You can do it!"

And right then I burst into tears and nearly choking sobs that I had to conceal for the next 10 minutes. It reminded me exactly of Dad trying to get down the stairs to the car to get to the hospital and not having any strength. He had one arm around my shoulders and another around Luke's.

He was confused about which foot to move, everything hurt and he couldn't think clearly.

And Luke said, "You've got this Dad! I've got you! I'm right here with you."

It was the most moving, yet heartbreaking, experience of all of my Dad's sickness.

When his 16-year-old son is confidently taking care of him, walking with him, encouraging him, loving him in sickness and in health.

All the while knowing he is going to have to say goodbye very soon for the rest of his life.

I've thought about it often for the past year and it never fails to choke me up.

I'm grateful for Luke and sad about my Dad all at the same time.

360 views of Phoenix!

Kristin too!

The man who pointed it out called it a lizard. Kristin thought maybe a Gila Monster. I call it huge!!

After showering and cleaning up, we met Erin & Marty for lunch and were able to sit outside (Phoenix in April is perfect!).

That afternoon EC and I watched "River of Victory," a documentary relevant to an excellent book we both just read -- The Rent Collector.

And that night we culminated our trip in another baseball game -- Dodgers happened to be in town playing the Diamondbacks. It was quite a game in a beautiful stadium (no traffic or parking congestion like Chavez Ravine!). We stayed until the 9th because Nick wanted to watch Jansen close it out (6-3). But guess what? He walked two and the next batter hit a Homerun, tying up the game! What?! We left and good thing we did because the game went into the 15th inning!

The boys watched from home. EC and I went to bed. Dodgers lost. Wow. Such a bummer for us.

But that would have been pretty incredible to be a Diamondback fan!