As most of you know by now, Ed’s dad, Mr. Burton (Rich) has passed away.

I’ve been avoiding writing this post and just about everything else I need to do, mostly because I’ve been lazy, also because this is hard. 

Aftter many calls from Karen (Ed’s mom) and Charles (Ed’s brother) and maybe even some from Grammy (Ed’s grandmother) asking us to please come earlier than Ed’s already bought plane ticket, I finally convinced him that we needed to go.  My parents and I had just driven down to Florida on Thursday, June 23^rd, from Mississippi to pack up some of my things for the impending separation that Ed and I are about to endure.  Sunday, while we were vistiting Karen’s cousin, his wife, and their kid, who had come down to FL for vacation, we got another call from Karen and then again from Charles, saying things had gotten worse and we needed to come immediately.  Karen told us repeatedly that Rich was just hanging on until Ed got there.

All night Sunday night we were trying to find the most reasonably priced tickets we could in order to get us there in the shortest amount of time possible.  We finally found a flight that would get us there Monday night at midnight, leaving in the late morning.  We would have to fly from Fort Myers, FL to Charlotte, NC to Milwaukee, WI and then finally to Omaha, NE where we would then have to drive what we found out would be three hours because of the Missouri River flooding and road construction.

When we got to the airport, we were trying to board the plane, I was going first, and when the nice guy at the counter scanned my ticket he said, “huh…wait a sec.”  I kind of got worried when after the second and third tries he still couldn’t get my ticket to work.  Ed volunteered that his ticket was the same and would probably do the same, and it did.

He then stopped boarding the plane and brought us over to a kiosk where he rerouted us.  I was about to say something when he said, “don’t complain, you’re going to like this.”  And we did…he rerouted us straight from Fort Myers to Wisconsin then to Omaha, shaving a big 8 hours off our trip, getting us to Rich sooner.  We had an awesome flight, with exit row seating and were able to get to Iowa by early afternoon.

Charles met us at the airport and drove us to Sioux City.  We met road construction and awful drivers the whole way, making the normal one hour trip take three hours.  Every so often, Karen would call in somewhat of a panic, asking where we were, saying we needed to hurry.  Charles of course was already doing 90+ mph when he could.

The next part is the hardest part for me.  We arrived is Sioux City and we immediately jumped out of the car and went inside, not worrying about our luggage or anything else.  When we walked upstairs to the living room, we saw the hospice bed that had been set up last time we were there and in it was the ghost of a man I once knew.  He looked nothing like himself.  Just a month before when we had been in Iowa, he was running up the stairs telling us he was not ready to die and that he was going to fight.  Unfortunately, the cancer had a different plan.  I already started to miss his, “Hey Kid!,” “Whatcha doin kiddos?,” and “hey darlin’”’s.

Ed had 22 hours with had dad before he passed.  He sat there and held his hand and talked to him.  It was one of the most heartbreaking things I have ever seen.  I kept thinking to myself, that my poor “bottom” (Ed’s nickname) had lost his mother to cancer and had now lost his father. It breaks my heart, as well as Ed’s, knowing that his parents will not be there to see our children and at the same time, we are so thankful that Karen will be there to share in those moments with us.  Grammy, who helped raise Ed and Charles when their mother died, will also be there to help our children know the great man that was their grandfather.