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I have never been a big fan of golfing… In fact, I was 20 the first time I went golfing with my dad at the old Rio Rancho Country Club. I had fun, but I wasn’t very good. Since then I’ve played a couple times a year at most.

On the other hand, my father, grandfather, and son LOVE to play golf. Jonah even started playing in the junior PGA this summer. My grandfather, being from Scotland, started playing as a kid too. I never played much because it’s so time consuming, and I’m one of those crazy people that truly enjoys his work.

My grandfather played golf twice a week for the past couple decades and because I wanted to spend some time with him I mentioned that if he ever needed a fourth, to let me know. So a few times this past spring and summer we were able to play a round. In fact, one time I was able to bring Jonah to play too.

I’m really glad we got to play.

Our “Kody Bear” died on the 23rd.

He hadn’t been eating much for a couple days, then on the 23rd, he puked up blood in the middle of the night, and then puked again (just water/bile) in the morning.  He looked very bloated (he’d been getting larger over the past month or so, but we just thought he was getting chubby from not running around) so we took him to the vet.

They did some x-rays, and it turned out he had a large tumor on his spleen (apparently it’s a common aggressive thing for shepard breeds – and he was part shepard). He had so much fluid build up, the vet said it was hard to see many of his organs, but that it had likely spread (they couldn’t be 100% sure without invasive surgery).  It was also likely that even if they did sugery, he wouldn’t ever fully recover and he’d have no quality of life (and be in a lot of pain).

We asked if we could bring him home to die, but the vet said it would get very “bad” – he would be in more and more pain, and he’d be vommiting more and more until his body gave out. He wasn’t in much (apparent) pain, but he was visibly uncomfortable (couldn’t find a way to lay down). We took the vet’s suggestion to put him to sleep.  We took Jonah in to say goodbye, and Janet’s mom came in too. After Jonah left with his Grandma, we petted him for about 20 minutes until he was just about to fall asleep. The vet gave him the injection and he went peacefully to sleep.

My grandmother told Jonah on Christmas eve that Kody and Great-Grandpa wanted to play, and Kody would keep him company.

I’d like to start out the “Grandpa Stories” with a little history of both of my grandparents. My grandfather was born in Scotland and grew up in Rosewell Scotland (just South of Edinburgh). His father was Thomas Murray, and was the manager for the company that ran the local mine (and basically the whole town).  On an interesting contemporary note, the Roslin chapel in the Da Vinci Codes book is very close to where he lived.

He went to school at George Watson’s College and was vice-captain of the rugby team (picture coming soon – Uncle Alan is going to bring it over so I can scan it in).  He actually got injured a lot playing rugby, and I think that’s where some of his knee issues came from – although most probably came from the plane crash (more on that in a later post). After completing school, at the age of 19, he decided to join the Royal Navy and become a pilot.

For training, he was to choose between Australia, Canada, or the U.S. My grandmother always used to tell him it was the luckiest decision he ever made (and she said yesterday that she was the luckiest from that decision . So, he came to Grosse Ile for training in the Grumman TBF Avenger Torpedo Bomber. While training there, he was invited to a local dance (like the USO, but not) for service men. My grandmother was there and noticed him. After him not making any moves toward her, she approached him and asked if he’d like to dance.  His response was completely predictable (if you knew him). He said:

“I don’t dance, and I don’t like girls.”  (with heavy Scottish accent).

But, they did talk for a long time, and were able to exchange contact information, and they had a date shortly thereafter. They went on a few more dates (always double-dating, since that would have been improper for any “alone time”).

I’m going to skip ahead because the dating and marriage is a whole other story.  To sum up, they got married just before my grandfather was shipped back to the UK. It was a long time before my grandmother could return to grandpa’s arms in Scotland. When she finally arrived, it had been many months (about a year I think) since they’d seen each other.  By then, my grandfather was stationed at an air base and was boarding with a local farmer.

The morning after their reunion, they stayed in their bedroom until late in the morning (at this point in the story my grandmother blushes quite a bit). They came out to the kitchen/dining room together and sat at the table for lunch, while the Farmer was already seated. The farmer looked at his watch and looked up at them.  My grandmother, trying to make the best of it said “Just think, we didn’t have to eat any of the breakfast, so we didn’t cut into the rations!”

To which the farmer replied, in his thick accent: “Aye lass! But think of the wearrr and tearrr on the sheets!”

As some of you may have noticed, I haven’t been online as much in the past few months. This was due to a combination of selling one of the companies that required me to be online all the time and helping my grandparents.

In August of this year, my grandfather started having difficulty driving, so I would spend 3-5 days a week shuttling them around town to various appointments (doctors, eye doctors, shopping, blood tests, x-rays, dermatologists, etc…) Since I don’t have an official “full-time” job, it was easy for me to do, and I really didn’t mind – in fact it was great because I got to spend a lot of time with both of them.

During August and September I received several scary phone calls, usually in the morning. My grandfather had fallen several times, and due to his knees, he couldn’t get back up himself.  I would hurry over as fast as possible to help him up – usually he wasn’t hurt, just couldn’t get back up.  (I’m convinced that I drove over with the help of angels – I once drove by several police cars at triple digit speeds in the silver Ferrari, and they didn’t respond at all.) Unfortunately, the frequency of the falls started to increase until early/mid October, when he fell and was just too tired. The first several times, he was okay, and we would take him to the doctor’s and have him checked. Earlier that week the doctor said that if he fell, he might want to consider going to the hospital. He of course said that probably wasn’t necessary.  I was at the gym when they paged me over the loudspeaker on Sunday morning – Janet called and said the Grandpa fell again. I flew over again and found him tangled in bed sheets laying at the side of the bed. He couldn’t catch his breath, and I got him seated on the bed.

Grandma and I knew this time was different because when I suggested we call an ambulance to take him to the hospital, he said that would be fine. They sent over a fire truck, and then an ambulance to take him to the Albuquerque Heart Hospital (which is amazing, BTW). It was the last time he was home.

Over the last two months he went to several hospitals and continued to decline. It turned out that he was becoming allergic to some of his medication (most importantly the dieuretics). That was causing a spiral that the doctors couldn’t stop.  Earlier this week they said it wouldn’t be long because anything they did to fix one thing would adversely affect other things. So family started flying in (both uncles and my brother). We were able to all see him yesterday morning and afternoon. He was lucid, and talkative, but also was very tired.

He passed away this morning around 1:30 am.

I’ve been spending 2 (and sometimes 3) nights a week at Grandma’s house to keep her company and help her with things she has trouble with.  My mom would spend the other nights.  We’ll continue to do that every night at least for the next few months.

Over the next couple days I want to post about the great and interesting stories he and grandma told me over the past four or five months. I’ve learned a lot about them in the past months, and it’s made today much harder, but I’m glad I was able to spend those days driving him around.

Anyway, about the title of this post… After going to so many doctors with grandpa, I was able to get quite good at answering the basic personal and medical questions. The most common was always “What’s your birthday?”  After a few weeks, we’d say in unison (with a slight giggle) “two three two three” – February 3rd, 1923.