Peaches
I keep thinking I should post about the covid (as Bobby and I call it at home), but honestly, feel like everyone would be fatigued about hearing the particulars of one more person's lockdown. Still, I know I should, for posterity, right? As a primary document for future historians?
But something has loomed even larger out of that. My father-in-law died yesterday. Three weeks ago, he had emergency open-heart surgery and came through it fine and was doing better every time Bobby spoke with him. He was doing well on Monday night, when Bobby talked to him last.
Yesterday, he wasn't feeling well, my MIL called his doctor, and he was instructed to go to the hospital right away. My SIL came over to help, and while they were helping him to get ready, he collapsed. My MIL did chest compressions; the paramedics managed to get a weak pulse after two applications of the AED, but they lost him again in the ambulance, and they were unable to revive him a second time.
Bobby was holding an online class, and I was in my daily social hour with my students (or trying to be ... both of us on video chat at the same time on our Internet does not work well) when my phone started ringing and ringing. It was my mom. Erin was trying to reach Bobby, who was in class and not picking up. At this point, my FIL had been revived enough to have a weak pulse. My SIL was going to call the hospital and update us. Because of the covid, of course, my inlaws could not go to the hospital with the ambulance. Immediately after, we got a call from the post office that they had a box of day-old chicks just arrived for us, so we headed into Orleans to pick them up. Bobby went in, came out, and put the box alive with peeps and tiny scratching claws in my lap and said, "He's gone."
In the context of the covid, it all feels very strange and not quite real. We cannot, of course, travel. Both sets of parents are in the high-risk category, and there is little we could do there anyway to warrant taking the risk. It is not as though there will be a funeral right now. Then there is the weirdness of work: of working with students and families online so right now being in a state of semi-bereavement leave, where I've asked my kids to give me some extra time to respond but otherwise getting my major job functions done and trying to also juggle what the next ten weeks will look like as our supervisory union releases their plan based on the State's guidelines. (The governor has closed our schools for the rest of the year.) It feels like it'd be easier if we were in regular work, where I could just take a couple days of leave.
Right now, Bobby and I are trying to lean hard on good memories. We have a lot! My FIL was a funny guy! Because Bobby and I have been together since we were fourteen (well, he'd just turned fifteen), we essentially grew up together as young adults, and his parents became second parents to me and vice versa. We have been fully a part of each other's lives and families for twenty-four years now, so we have a lot of memories of vacations and holidays and just daily life with his dad.
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth and, using my Felagundish Elf magic, crossposted to LiveJournal. You can comment here or there!
https://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/445523.html
But something has loomed even larger out of that. My father-in-law died yesterday. Three weeks ago, he had emergency open-heart surgery and came through it fine and was doing better every time Bobby spoke with him. He was doing well on Monday night, when Bobby talked to him last.
Yesterday, he wasn't feeling well, my MIL called his doctor, and he was instructed to go to the hospital right away. My SIL came over to help, and while they were helping him to get ready, he collapsed. My MIL did chest compressions; the paramedics managed to get a weak pulse after two applications of the AED, but they lost him again in the ambulance, and they were unable to revive him a second time.
Bobby was holding an online class, and I was in my daily social hour with my students (or trying to be ... both of us on video chat at the same time on our Internet does not work well) when my phone started ringing and ringing. It was my mom. Erin was trying to reach Bobby, who was in class and not picking up. At this point, my FIL had been revived enough to have a weak pulse. My SIL was going to call the hospital and update us. Because of the covid, of course, my inlaws could not go to the hospital with the ambulance. Immediately after, we got a call from the post office that they had a box of day-old chicks just arrived for us, so we headed into Orleans to pick them up. Bobby went in, came out, and put the box alive with peeps and tiny scratching claws in my lap and said, "He's gone."
In the context of the covid, it all feels very strange and not quite real. We cannot, of course, travel. Both sets of parents are in the high-risk category, and there is little we could do there anyway to warrant taking the risk. It is not as though there will be a funeral right now. Then there is the weirdness of work: of working with students and families online so right now being in a state of semi-bereavement leave, where I've asked my kids to give me some extra time to respond but otherwise getting my major job functions done and trying to also juggle what the next ten weeks will look like as our supervisory union releases their plan based on the State's guidelines. (The governor has closed our schools for the rest of the year.) It feels like it'd be easier if we were in regular work, where I could just take a couple days of leave.
Right now, Bobby and I are trying to lean hard on good memories. We have a lot! My FIL was a funny guy! Because Bobby and I have been together since we were fourteen (well, he'd just turned fifteen), we essentially grew up together as young adults, and his parents became second parents to me and vice versa. We have been fully a part of each other's lives and families for twenty-four years now, so we have a lot of memories of vacations and holidays and just daily life with his dad.
This post was originally posted on Dreamwidth and, using my Felagundish Elf magic, crossposted to LiveJournal. You can comment here or there!
https://dawn-felagund.dreamwidth.org/445523.html