It had just been a few days since our trip to Salt Lake City, when the phones started to ring. We had still not completely unpacked and we still had dirty clothes to wash from the trip. Jayme was still beaming and talking about how cool his trip to Salt Lake City was.
We had just started to get back into the home groove and were starting to get excited about our “Road Trip” vacation planned to begin in less then a week. But the phones started ringing.
It started with a voice mail from Joshua’s father saying to call to call him back. So Joshua immediately called him back and received the news and while on the phone with his father a voicemail came from Mom to call her back.
Joshua’s beloved Grandmother had passed away.
She had taken Grandpa into the hospital for one of this normal treatments, it was a regular day. While waiting for the doctor in the treatment room with Grandpa she fell over out of her chair, the spark of life gone..
No one in the family was prepared for her death. Everyone knew Grandpa’s health was poor and we all knew at Shiloh’s wedding that this might be the last time we would see him. So we all made sure to spend a little extra time with him and to have a goodbye. We even made sure Jayme had some face time with Grandpa who really enjoyed spending time with him. No one in our immediate or extended family had those thoughts about Grandma.
This was and continues to be hard on our family and something we are still dealing with. The Sorensen family is very close and this was the loss of the Matriarch of that tight knit family.
Jayme was home from school and being baby sat by Uncle Sam when Sam got the call. Sam of course lost it and had to try to explain to a six year old with anxiety issues what had just happened and why he was crying. Joshua was at work when dad got in touch with him and called Anthony in tears. Anthony ordered him to go home at once, and then started calling Jayme’s therapist.
It took a day before we heard what the funeral arangements where to be and that next evening we decided that we didn’t want Jayme’s memories of his new family to be of a family in morning, at least not a less then a week after meeting them all for the first time.
So we decided that Anthony and Jayme would stay in Portland. So Joshua quickly paid off a credit card and bought two last minute airline tickets to Salt Lake City for Sam and himself. (Note: Working with American Express and Delta at the same time was amazingly easy.. The Conference call to get the flights arranged went smoothly and everyone was very sympathetic to our plight).
The first thing that Joshua had done after getting the airfare was speak to his Mother about a place to stay for Sam & him. She recommended that we stay with Eve, an old family friend. We quickly got this arranged and are still very grateful to her as she is really close to the family.
The next day Joshua and Sam flew back to Salt Lake to be with the family. Joshua picked up the rental car (first one ever in his name) and drove off to Grandparents house. Once there, they met up with the uncles and aunts and started to help try and put things in order. Joshua arranged to pick up James from the airport due to a midnight arrival time. James’ one request was that there be Cookie Dough Ice Cream waiting for him. Everyone at the house helped to pitch in with dinner and Josh & Sam caught up with their cousins.
The next day was the viewing and rosary. Joshua’s Mom, Carol (Family Friend) and aunts had put together a memory book full of photo’s of Grandma. Grandma’s sister (Aunty Dale) from Hawaii also flew in and Joshua was happy to see her. It had been about 13 years since he last saw her. Joshua and Sam helped out by running errands and just spent time with the family.
Saturday was the day day of the funeral. Lets just leave it at emotionally overwhelming.