our Christmas story

Sometimes we don't recognize how wonderful "normal" can be. To me, if something is normal, it is expected, routine. We all expected a normal Christmas this year; family in town, Dixie working over the holidays, playing with cousins, you know the drill. But, this year our Christmas decided to deviate out of our norm.

It started on Christmas eve. We had a wonderful dinner in Driggs with Grams & Gramps. Other family had come up for the holidays. Jarrod & Shelly, Shauna, & Todd plus our family were all packed into Grams & Gramps' home.

After dinner, Gramps wasn't feeling well, bad enough that we begged him to go to the ER, and after some major begging, he finally consented to go. He was admitted into the tiny Driggs hospital for antibiotics. What a way to spend Christmas Eve! I wish that is where the story ended.

But it doesn't.

We got a call at 3 am Christmas morning. Gramps was being transported by ambulance to our largest hospital, the ambulance bucking snow drifts and braving a white out to get him to a more equipped facility. Grams & everyone staying at her house were hopelessly snowed in.

We were having our fist blizzard.

We scrambled to find a sitter, but who do you get at 3 am on Christmas morning? We called Alan & Heather, but they had recently been playing middle of the night phone pranks on Dustin, so their phone was turned off. Josh decided to go alone.

He drove down the dark highway. Only one set of tracks were visible, those of the ambulance, a few minutes ahead of him. He arrived at the hospital finding Gramps alert, but in pain. No one was quite sure what was going on.

To make a long story a little shorter, lab tests revealed that Gramps was in septic shock, a very dangerous condition, and he was dying. So to save his life, doctors placed a tube down his throat, allowing machines to breathe for Gramps, and pumped his body full of medicines to control the side effects of the shock and kill the germs causing the sepsis.

Josh was able to stay by his side all day as Gramps fought for his life. It was a hard day. I stayed home with the kids, making arrangements, relaying calls, feeling helpless. The kids couldn't understand why I kept crying or why they couldn't just open there presents. I finally told them they could each pick one present to open. And this is what I found:

Wow.

Each & every present with Jake & Lander's name on it had been opened. They were having a marvelous time, and I cried some more!

It didn't feel like Christmas at all.

Luckily, things are starting to smooth out. Against difficult odds, Gramps seems to be healing. We are almost too afraid to hope. None of us want him to suffer, but if he can recover, we aren't ready to see him leave yet either.

So, now we just watch and wait. And remember the good times with the man that Josh looks up to the most. The man who taught Josh how to enjoy work, how to honor his priesthood, how to love his family. So many lessons, so much love.
We love you Gramps aka Peepaw!