Leo plays the blues, and Moo Moo the Cow

Lately when Leo has been sent to his room for a timeout for misbehavior, he will start to play his harmonica. A family friend plays the harmonica and Leo wanted to as well. He now only seems to play it during timeouts. David said that the music seems sad, so he wrote on his Facebook account that he didn't expect his six year old son to be playing the blues. Phil, David's father, wrote that the blues are better than what David played as a child when he was sent to his room. He had a record player (yes, I do mean record player for you young readers) and would play "Moo Moo the Cow" over and over and over again. It drove Phil crazy. Maybe that was David's goal - to make his punishment so unpleasant for everyone that he would be unlikely to be punished. I wouldn't doubt the adult David that I know and love doing that, but I don't know if he was like that as a kid. David says that he has no memory of Moo Moo the Cow or playing the record.

Grandpa/Greatgrandpa Jim

David's Grandpa and Leo'sGreatgrandpa Jim's memorial service was held yesterday. It was at his Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elk lodge, which we always called the Elk's Club. I don't know the history of the Elks, but it seems to have something to do with veterans of World War 1. When the memorial service started at 1 PM, the clock was set to 11 AM and chimed eleven times. There was mention made of 11 o'clock being the hour to remember the dead. I believe that WW1 ended at 11 AM, November 11th, so that's probably the origin of the emphasis on 11. The Elks also emphasize duty and serving the country in the military, and the American flag was prominent.

The ceremony itself was, as his daughter charitably said "Well, that was different." It was generically religious, Christian really, but also used the symbolism of ivy and some type of flower, but I wasn't sure what they symbolized. The master of ceremony I guess that you would call him mumbled and didn't read his script well, so I couldn't follow all that was said. The cheap looking plastic ivy and flowers didn't help. Thankfully it was brief, ending 12 minutes after it started. There was a point where people were asked if they wanted to say something about Jim, but no one did. I think the problem was that at nearly 91 he had outlived his friends. He said the same thing when the family gave him a surprise 80th birthday party. If I had thought about it ahead of time, I would have said something, but in reality I wouldn't have known what to say. I didn't get to know my grandfather in law as a person really. The longest conversation that we ever had happened when I asked him about Jean, his first wife and David's grandmother, who died before I joined the family. He talked for 20 or 30 minutes about her.

Afterward Phil, Jim's son and David's father, broke down. He said that it finally hit him that his father was gone. David just held his dad, and at my urging Leo went over and hugged his grandfather as well. David is doing fairly well. As I said in my earlier post, he wasn't close to his grandfather.

Afterwards Jim's widow treated us to lunch at the Elk's Club. The food was typical American food circa 1960. The only vegetarian item on the menu was a side order of French fries, so I passed on food. It's not too much fun to sit and watch other people eat I discovered.

By then Leo was restless, so we left soon afterwards. Millie, my mother in law, rode home with us, so we had four people crammed into my Honda Insight. Leo wanted David in the backseat with him, and David wanted to honor that because Leo was clingy, which is to be expected when a six year old is around the ceremonies of death. To fit a 6'4" (I think that's about 1.9 meters) tall man in the backseat, Millie had to pull her seat so forward that her knees were against the glove box.

Later last night Leo couldn't sleep and called for David to cuddle with him in bed. They talked about Greatgrandpa Jim and dying. Leo asked me earlier if Greatgrandpa Jim knew that he was going to die. I said that since Greatgrandpa Jim was old, he knew that he would die sometime but not when it would happen. We expect more questions in the next few days, or maybe weeks or months from now.

my inlaws are married again

Today my inlaws, Millie and Phil, got married for the second time, 44 years after their first marriage and 29 years after their divorce. It was a brief ceremony during the early morning service at their Lutheran church. The retired priest who counseled them before and after their divorce performed the ceremony. There was a reception afterward in the church hall, then family and close friends went back to their house. We picked up food from the catering service of a local grocery store so that everyone would have something to snack on before dinner. It was good to see everyone in the family, and many of their friends spoke to me. They knew who I was, and many of them looked familiar from prior parties, but I didn't know who most of them were and didn't want to say "Who are you?" so I made small talk. Leo did well playing with the only other kid there.

I did note one humorous detail. Millie and Phil each have separate bedrooms, as they have since they moved back in together. They have Millie's best friend spending the night, and her son rents a room from Millie and Phil, and her other son is sleeping in the fourth bedroom. So that leaves the best friend to sleep in Millie's king sized bed with Millie. I pointed out to Millie and Phil that she'll be sleeping with someone other than her new husband on her wedding night. They both smiled at that. I don't know if they are still having sex or not, nor do I want to know.

Grandpa/Greatgrandpa Jim, 1919-2010

David's paternal grandfather, and Leo's greatgrandfather, Jim, died last night. He was 90, almost 91. We received a phone call just after lunch from Millie (my mother in law) that Phil (my father in law) had been called from a local Emergency Department that Jim had a large cerebral hemorrhage (a stroke with bleeding in the brain), and that the family should come to the ED now. When we arrived Jim wasn't moving the right side of his body and would only occasionally open his eyes. The ED physician (who David referred to as "Dr. Hottie - he's got that nerd thing goin' that I like so much" - guess that explains why David was attracted to me) explained that there was a large amount of blood in the left side of Jim's brain, and that in a person Jim's age the situation was usually fatal within a few days. Jim's wife, two children, his only grandson and greatgrandson (David and Leo) were there, and his sister was coming in from her home about 3 hours away. Leo was a little scared or intimidated at first but later warmed up and held Jim's hand. After a few hours we left when EMTs arrived to take Jim to a hospital covered by his insurance.

David has been ill the last few days, and I had to wake him up from a nap to go to the ED. He didn't want to go to the other hospital, and Leo had had enough of hospitals. I asked if David wanted to go back later to see his grandfather, but he didn't. Mille called about 11:30 PM to tell us that Jim had died.

I am trying to help David, but the reality is that he doesn't need any help. He's not sad, since he saw this coming for a long time. At Thanksgiving he talked with his grandfather, only to have his grandfather ask his mother why David wasn't there. The other reason, really the main reason, that David isn't sad is that he wasn't close to his grandfather. Despite living about 30 miles apart, the family only got together once or twice a year when David was growing up. That was because Phil had a very strained relationship with his father. So David doesn't have good memories of his grandfather from his childhood.

But Jim was an involved and loving greatgrandfather to Leo. In his 80s he would get down on the floor and play with Leo, which David said his grandfather never did with him. I think Jim was raised by a strict German father who taught him that men didn't show emotions and left childcare to women. So Jim missed the chance to have a close relationship with his grandson but he didn't make the same mistake with his greatgrandson.

Unfortunately, Jim didn't make any funeral arrangements, so his wife (who is his second wife, not David's grandmother) is trying to do that now, but she doesn't seem to be able to make decisions from what we hear.

This Sunday was supposed to be Millie and Phil's wedding (getting remarried 29 years after their divorce), but we're not sure if Phil will want to get married soon after his father died.

my inlaws are getting married, again

Last night my mother-in-law, who I'll call Millie, called to say that she and my father-in-law, who I'll call Phil, are getting married. This will be their second marriage. The first started in 1966 and apparently ran into trouble quickly. But it produced my husband David in 1970. (Sorry, had to edit out something about David that he didn't want me to share with the world. If you have already read it, pretend that you don't know about it.) They separated in 1978 and divorced in 1981.

By the time I joined the family in 1991, they were back to being each other's best friend. I told David that his parents were the closest divorced couple that I had ever seen. They took vacations together along with many other activities. They moved back in together in 2003, just before our son Leo was born. They expanded the house a few years later to have two master suites, since Phil's CPAP machine for his sleep apnea is too loud for them to sleep in the same room.

Last year they became domestic partners here in California. Phil had wanted them to remarry but Millie was reluctant. Now she's come around and they'll have a small ceremony at their Lutheran church later this month. So married for 15 years, divorced for 29, then remarried. Millie said that she has wanted to wait until David's marriage to me was recognized throughout the United States, but that will take years (I hope that it will happen eventually), and they are in their 60s.