With essentially no food or water intake for weeks, Papa stopped talking in his final days on earth. But somehow, he mustered up the energy to have one last phone conversation with Genesee and I before he left.

And then he was gone.

On March 21st at 9:45 p.m., Papa passed away peacefully, surrounded by the love of my mom and my aunts. They held his hand and sang his favorite song as he went to start his spirit journey.

We are heartbroken, but grateful that he didn’t suffer for long. This whole situation happened very quickly, in fact. …Imagine being “well” enough to drive yourself 40 minutes to the emergency room in a stick-shift vehicle, spend 2 weeks in the hospital before learning a devastating diagnosis, returning home on hospice, and then only surviving 2 additional weeks. That’s what we watched happen to our Papa over the last month.

Sometimes life isn’t fair. Sometimes life is too short. Sometimes love is painful.

But as they say, “grief is the last act of love we have to give to those we love. Where there is deep grief, there was great love.”

And so, for now, we grieve….