(no subject)
I know I've been out of touch for quite sometime, but I promise I have not foresaken this journal, nor any of my wonderful LJers.
Things have been kind of up and down over this way. The up part being that after almost 3 months of unemployment, I finally landed a gig that I start on Monday. It's way more money than I was expecting, and with a benefit heavy company in a job that will allow me to shine in a short period of time. It's not my ideal position, as it's call center related, but it's something I know I can learn quickly and excel at and hopefully use as a stepping stone to something else.
On the down side, my dear sweet grandfather's cancer has decided that his lungs were simply not enough and has now moved into his brain. It's an ugly situation to say the least, and I could type for hours about it but it's late and I have much laundry and packing to be done, so I will take the lazy route and copy and paste from my MySpace blog because really... That's all I have the energy for right now.
I hope everyone is well, and I promise that I will return to the land of the LJ living, sooner rather than later. :)
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So, I've been in a really good mood the past week or two since I knew that gainful employment was just around the corner. I had high hopes for 2007, but as luck would have it, it's just not going to be that way.
My Aunt Colleen called me today to tell me that my Grandfather isn't doing so well. Last spring my Aunt Patty had told me that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer, which is obviously bad. But, he went through treatment and the outcome looked good for him. Unfortunately, he went back for his 6 month scan and they've discovered that the cancer has spread into his brain. The outcome seems fairly grim, but my Aunts and my father are meeting with the doctors tomorrow to see what the options are. Then there is going to be a family meeting tomorrow night to see what Grandpa wants to do.
All of this is so overwhelming, I don't even know what to do with myself. It's especially difficult because of the dynamic with the Murphy side of my family. Anyone who knows me fairly well knows that my real father and I aren't exactly what you would call "close". For as long as I can remember he has simply been "Dennis" to me, while my step-dad, Richard, has always been "Dad". As a matter of fact, I think it's been about 4 or 5 years since I even last spoke to Dennis. The only updates I get about him or Melissa (his wife) or my brothers, is via one of my Aunts. And then there's my Grandmother...
When I was 18 and going through the phase my mother likes to lovingly call "that time when Adelle lost her mind", my Grandmother and I got into a huge fight and I said some pretty nasty things to her. Nothing that really wasn't true (in regards to my father), but things she didn't want to hear, none the less. She's pretty much cut me off, ever since. I've seen and spoken to her once since that day almost 15 years ago, and that was at my brother Joshua's high school graduation 7 or 8 years ago.
My Grandfather, however, is a different story. JJ (as he is so known in our family) and I have always had a very special relationship. He was always very fond of my mother and when I would spend my summers in New Orleans and my Grandmother wasn't around, JJ would always tell me stories about my mom or ask after her or talk about how good her cooking was. I am the first born grandchild and even though I was a spoiled little brat when I was younger, he always had a certain level of patience for me that no one else in the family ever did.
One summer, when I was 7 years old, I sat down next to my grandfather and asked him what he was watching. "Baseball", was his answer. So, I asked him to explain it to me so I could watch it with him and I can still see the look of excitment on his face when I did that, to this day. He pointed at the TV and he said, "Well, the first thing you should know is... Those are your Atlanta Braves". And the very first person I ever saw come up to bat was Dale Murphy and I said to my grandfather, "Oh, Grandpa he has our last name! I pick him to be my favorite player". My Grandfather simply chuckled and said, "Good pick". Dale Murphy won his first NL MVP that year. And from that day forward, I was an Atlanta Braves fan because my Grandfather was an Atlanta Braves fan. It was something that my Grandpa and I could always do together and even when I talked to him on the phone, somehow Dale Murphy always seemed to hit a homerun. It took me a few years to figure out that it would be kind of hard for even Murph, to hit a homerun in January, but I never let on. Even when I was 17 years old and had been playing ball for half my life and was well old enough to know better, Murph still managed to hit homeruns every single time I talked to my Grandpa.
My Grandfather is one of the sweetest, kindest men you would ever meet in your life. Even after all of the years of my Grandmother and I not talking, Grandpa still sends me emails with things like old photos that he found of me as just a wee tot. And he always remembers to email me on my birthday. He's not an overly emotional man, but if you know him as I know him, you know that these little gestures is simply his way of showing he cares.
There's a lot more that I could go into, like the fact that he and my Grandmother have been sleeping in seperate rooms since I was about 15, and really they haven't had a relationship in that many years, if not more. No one really knows what exactly happened, but for whatever reason known only to them, they simply coexist under the same roof and that's about it. It wasn't by any choice of my Grandfather's that this is how things went, but as he is a man who simply does not believe in divorce, he has lived this way for as long as he has because he honors the sanctity of marriage.
Basically, my Grandfather is just really a great guy. The kind of Grandpa you always wished you had, who spoiled you rotten and wore his pants just a little too high so that his pants legs were always high waters and you could see the white of socks with every swish of his step. He still slicks his hair back and wears the same chunky black glasses that he's worn since before I was born.
Even though I haven't spent my summers with him the way that I used to when I was growing up, JJ has always held a special place with me and he's someone I think of often. Every time I make a trip to Turner Field, I wish he were with me. Whenever my brain randomly comes up with some random sports factoid, I quietly thank my Grandpa for being a walking sports almanac. Whenever my mom makes her chili or her lasagna, I eat it with a little smile knowing that my Grandpa would be in heaven sitting there eating with us.
And now, he is sick. He is VERY sick. And we're not sure how long he has. When Aunt Colleen called me today, she said that the first thing her and my Aunt Patty thought of when they got the news was, "We have to call Adelle. She needs to come here. He would want to see her". And they're absolutely right. I know that he would want to see me, and I know I damn sure would want to see him. So after a chat with my mom, I jumped online and I finally put some of my frequent flyer miles to work. I managed to get a ticket for tomorrow morning, staying until Sunday. It's not really even the ideal time for me to go since my father is flying in tomorrow and everyone is going to be around and it's probably going to be hectic, but with starting a new job on Monday, I'm really not sure when I might have the chance to do this again. I wasn't able to go see Aunt Linda before she passed... I'm certainly not going to make that same mistake with my Grandfather.
With that being said, I'll be out of pocket for a few days. With any luck, I'll simply be laying on the couch with my Grandpa, watching TV and not doing much of anything at all. Just being near him and having him know that I love him, is really all I need.
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Things have been kind of up and down over this way. The up part being that after almost 3 months of unemployment, I finally landed a gig that I start on Monday. It's way more money than I was expecting, and with a benefit heavy company in a job that will allow me to shine in a short period of time. It's not my ideal position, as it's call center related, but it's something I know I can learn quickly and excel at and hopefully use as a stepping stone to something else.
On the down side, my dear sweet grandfather's cancer has decided that his lungs were simply not enough and has now moved into his brain. It's an ugly situation to say the least, and I could type for hours about it but it's late and I have much laundry and packing to be done, so I will take the lazy route and copy and paste from my MySpace blog because really... That's all I have the energy for right now.
I hope everyone is well, and I promise that I will return to the land of the LJ living, sooner rather than later. :)
--------------------------------
So, I've been in a really good mood the past week or two since I knew that gainful employment was just around the corner. I had high hopes for 2007, but as luck would have it, it's just not going to be that way.
My Aunt Colleen called me today to tell me that my Grandfather isn't doing so well. Last spring my Aunt Patty had told me that he had been diagnosed with lung cancer, which is obviously bad. But, he went through treatment and the outcome looked good for him. Unfortunately, he went back for his 6 month scan and they've discovered that the cancer has spread into his brain. The outcome seems fairly grim, but my Aunts and my father are meeting with the doctors tomorrow to see what the options are. Then there is going to be a family meeting tomorrow night to see what Grandpa wants to do.
All of this is so overwhelming, I don't even know what to do with myself. It's especially difficult because of the dynamic with the Murphy side of my family. Anyone who knows me fairly well knows that my real father and I aren't exactly what you would call "close". For as long as I can remember he has simply been "Dennis" to me, while my step-dad, Richard, has always been "Dad". As a matter of fact, I think it's been about 4 or 5 years since I even last spoke to Dennis. The only updates I get about him or Melissa (his wife) or my brothers, is via one of my Aunts. And then there's my Grandmother...
When I was 18 and going through the phase my mother likes to lovingly call "that time when Adelle lost her mind", my Grandmother and I got into a huge fight and I said some pretty nasty things to her. Nothing that really wasn't true (in regards to my father), but things she didn't want to hear, none the less. She's pretty much cut me off, ever since. I've seen and spoken to her once since that day almost 15 years ago, and that was at my brother Joshua's high school graduation 7 or 8 years ago.
My Grandfather, however, is a different story. JJ (as he is so known in our family) and I have always had a very special relationship. He was always very fond of my mother and when I would spend my summers in New Orleans and my Grandmother wasn't around, JJ would always tell me stories about my mom or ask after her or talk about how good her cooking was. I am the first born grandchild and even though I was a spoiled little brat when I was younger, he always had a certain level of patience for me that no one else in the family ever did.
One summer, when I was 7 years old, I sat down next to my grandfather and asked him what he was watching. "Baseball", was his answer. So, I asked him to explain it to me so I could watch it with him and I can still see the look of excitment on his face when I did that, to this day. He pointed at the TV and he said, "Well, the first thing you should know is... Those are your Atlanta Braves". And the very first person I ever saw come up to bat was Dale Murphy and I said to my grandfather, "Oh, Grandpa he has our last name! I pick him to be my favorite player". My Grandfather simply chuckled and said, "Good pick". Dale Murphy won his first NL MVP that year. And from that day forward, I was an Atlanta Braves fan because my Grandfather was an Atlanta Braves fan. It was something that my Grandpa and I could always do together and even when I talked to him on the phone, somehow Dale Murphy always seemed to hit a homerun. It took me a few years to figure out that it would be kind of hard for even Murph, to hit a homerun in January, but I never let on. Even when I was 17 years old and had been playing ball for half my life and was well old enough to know better, Murph still managed to hit homeruns every single time I talked to my Grandpa.
My Grandfather is one of the sweetest, kindest men you would ever meet in your life. Even after all of the years of my Grandmother and I not talking, Grandpa still sends me emails with things like old photos that he found of me as just a wee tot. And he always remembers to email me on my birthday. He's not an overly emotional man, but if you know him as I know him, you know that these little gestures is simply his way of showing he cares.
There's a lot more that I could go into, like the fact that he and my Grandmother have been sleeping in seperate rooms since I was about 15, and really they haven't had a relationship in that many years, if not more. No one really knows what exactly happened, but for whatever reason known only to them, they simply coexist under the same roof and that's about it. It wasn't by any choice of my Grandfather's that this is how things went, but as he is a man who simply does not believe in divorce, he has lived this way for as long as he has because he honors the sanctity of marriage.
Basically, my Grandfather is just really a great guy. The kind of Grandpa you always wished you had, who spoiled you rotten and wore his pants just a little too high so that his pants legs were always high waters and you could see the white of socks with every swish of his step. He still slicks his hair back and wears the same chunky black glasses that he's worn since before I was born.
Even though I haven't spent my summers with him the way that I used to when I was growing up, JJ has always held a special place with me and he's someone I think of often. Every time I make a trip to Turner Field, I wish he were with me. Whenever my brain randomly comes up with some random sports factoid, I quietly thank my Grandpa for being a walking sports almanac. Whenever my mom makes her chili or her lasagna, I eat it with a little smile knowing that my Grandpa would be in heaven sitting there eating with us.
And now, he is sick. He is VERY sick. And we're not sure how long he has. When Aunt Colleen called me today, she said that the first thing her and my Aunt Patty thought of when they got the news was, "We have to call Adelle. She needs to come here. He would want to see her". And they're absolutely right. I know that he would want to see me, and I know I damn sure would want to see him. So after a chat with my mom, I jumped online and I finally put some of my frequent flyer miles to work. I managed to get a ticket for tomorrow morning, staying until Sunday. It's not really even the ideal time for me to go since my father is flying in tomorrow and everyone is going to be around and it's probably going to be hectic, but with starting a new job on Monday, I'm really not sure when I might have the chance to do this again. I wasn't able to go see Aunt Linda before she passed... I'm certainly not going to make that same mistake with my Grandfather.
With that being said, I'll be out of pocket for a few days. With any luck, I'll simply be laying on the couch with my Grandpa, watching TV and not doing much of anything at all. Just being near him and having him know that I love him, is really all I need.
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