{"id":3037,"date":"2012-01-09T16:11:59","date_gmt":"2012-01-09T21:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/?p=3037"},"modified":"2012-01-09T16:11:59","modified_gmt":"2012-01-09T21:11:59","slug":"with-a-lot-of-help-from-my-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/with-a-lot-of-help-from-my-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"With a Lot of Help From My Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"

You know you have the best friends in the world when you can send them an email that essentially says, “I’m feeling pretty sad and will probably not be the greatest company, but I’d love to hang out with you tonight” and every single one of them<\/em> shows up. With food.<\/p>\n

I experienced a whirlwind of emotions on Friday afternoon as my family attempted to figure out just how urgent it was that we all make our way to CT to see my grandfather. By the end of the day, I was exhausted, mentally and physically, but simultaneously desperate to get out of my own head. Kristian suggested that we invite a few folks over, so I sent out the aforementioned sad sack of an email. I wasn’t sure if it was asking too much to invite people over for the sole purpose of cheering me up, but if I was out of line they were all too nice to do anything but cheer me up.<\/p>\n

I almost felt bad about having such a good time, but it ended up being a lovely evening. Kristian made homemade pizza and we ate ice cream and yodels. We made plans for a big road trip that we’re hoping to take in May. And we went through a bunch of old photos and laughed at the ridonculous hair that we all sported back in the 90s. Mostly, I basked in their friendship. It was glorious.<\/p>\n

Saturday was tough<\/em>. Kristian and I drove down to CT where various family members had congregated and we all spent most of the day comforting each other and crying. We’d all be fine for a bit, but then somebody would start crying and we’d all<\/em> start crying. It was positively dehydrating.<\/p>\n

My Grandfather is in decent spirits and he’s still not in any pain. Uncomfortable, yes, but not in any pain. He takes a lot of naps, but I did manage to spend a little bit of time with him. I told him what an amazing Grandpa he is, the gold standard of Grandfathers. Which made him cry. Which made my Grandmother cry. Which made me cry. I can’t get the image of his tears out of my head, but I’m glad that I said what I did. He is<\/em> an amazing grandfather. I’m pretty sure that he’s aware of how we all feel, but it was important for me to tell him. I just hope that this hurt in my soul can fade into a dull ache. Right now, it’s almost unbearably painful.<\/p>\n

It’s a testament to how amazing my Grandfather is that so many people have been checking in on him and reaching out to my family. The nurse from his oncologist’s office called on her day off to check on him. A woman from another office stopped by the hospital to visit him. My family has to maintain a strict schedule in terms of who can come over, because otherwise he’d be overwhelmed with visitors. That’s just the kind of man that my Grandpa is. People are instinctively drawn to him. He has that kind of spirit.<\/p>\n

This has been a tough time for me, but I know that I’ll get through it. How could I not? I have the world’s greatest friends and family.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You know you have the best friends in the world when you can send them an email that essentially says, “I’m feeling pretty sad and will probably not be the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[8,44,3,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-friends","category-grumble","category-random"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5yggS-MZ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3037"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3041,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3037\/revisions\/3041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hoperoth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}