(no subject)

At 09:42 this morning,
HPH drew his last breath and stepped forth from the mortal coil
into the arms of the Everlasting.

His final moments were with his oldest grandchild, Elisabeth,
and his youngest, Christina, when the fourth full cardiac arrest
in two hours occurred.
Only ten feet away was his only child, HSH, and his wife.
His third grandchild, Leah, was trapped in morning gridlock
as she frantically attempted to get to the hospital.

And on this twelfth day of April, in the year of our Lord 2007,
another old soldier has laid down to final rest.

I'm sorry I've been silent of late. There... has been a lot going on, and it's left me very little time for actually living. It's in the wake of my grandfather's passing that I discover just how terribly little I knew about him; the rifts between us had long ago stifled all but the most rudimentary of contact.

I was holding his hand when he went. The doctors knew something was wrong from strangled sounding whimper I made, and then the alarms from the monitoring equipment went off and Tina and I were bustled out of the room. I had to intercept Dad - he'd heard the alarms in the little waiting room on the other side of the ICU and was barreling in like a tank.

Services are to be at the beginning of next week. I likely won't reappear until sometime after. I... I'm not fit company right now.