for bunca...

What do you say?

so i had a rough weekend.

i got a call from my dad on saturday night asking me to call him. it was a little unusual, he sounded pretty reserved and just kept it pretty simple.

Voicemail: Hey Benj, it's your dad. Give me a call when you get this, I'm at the house. I love you.

so i called him back, not sure what was going on. He didn't answer his cell phone so i called the house and he answered.

Dad: Hey buddy, how's it going
Me: Good. What are you doing?
Dad: Just watching TV.
Me: That's weird(sacrastically)
Dad: Yeah, who would have guessed.
Me: What's going on?
Dad:(pause) Well Bunca(nickname for my Dad's mom; my grandmother) was in the hospital for pneumonia and was just released. She's out now and staying with Aunt Sharon(my dad's sister).

she had been in the hospital before with pneumonia so it wasn't that big of a surprise.

Me: Oh, how's she doing?
Dad: Well, they found she has terminal cancer. It's all over her body, in her bones, liver, kidneys. It's everywhere and the Doctors don't know how long she has. They say she's going pretty fast.
Me: What?!
Dad: I know. I just thought that you should know. Your mother and I are leaving for Palm Springs on Thursday to be with her.
Me: I...how are you doing?
Dad: I'm ok. It's something that happens when you get older. You start getting sick and you're in and out of the hospital. I told her last week after she visited the hospital that she was scaring me.
Me: How long does she have?
Dad: I don't know. I have Aunt Sharon's number. Bunca would love to hear from you and Skyla. Let me get the number for you.

i was kind of paralyzed; kind of cloudy. this was my grandmother; my Bunca. my dad gave me the phone number which i wrote down and i told my dad i loved him and that i would be praying for him and Bunca. i hung up the phone and Skyla asked what had happen and i told her. suddenly the memories and feelings just started coming out.

i kept thinking how much i wanted her to be around for the baby which is due in a couple months. how much i wanted my new person to meet my old person. how the timing could be so off. how thankful i was that Skyla was able to meet her. how the ultrasound of our baby had her nose. how i wish i would have visited more in college. how she loved having us around in the summers when we came back from guatemala...

sunday we went to church(first time in a long time) and i knew that i would have to call her that afternoon, but what do you say? the previous night while talking to my dad he said something that was really poignant.

Me: What did she say?
Dad: She told me she was sorry. She was sorry that she wouldn't be around anymore.
Me: (deep breath)
Dad: I would be sorry if you guys didn't have me around anymore too. Not sorry for me, just sorry for you guys(laugh)
Me: You're funny.

so i picked up the phone to call her sunday afternoon. i still wasn't sure what i would say. Aunt Sharon answered the phone.

Me: How is everything?
Sharon: We're doing good. As well as can be expected. She's in good spirits.
Me: Is she awake? Can I talk to her?
Sharon: Hold on, I'll get her. (to Bunca) It's the final grandson.

i was the last one to call. great.

Bunca: Hi Benji.
Me: Hi Bunca. How are you?
Bunca: I'm doing ok. Just resting here.

what do you say!? Please don't die?!

Me: So you're out of the hospital..are you going back?
Bunca: No. Once the doctors found out, they just kicked me out (laugh)

she's trying to be funny. just keep it light.

Bunca: I've lead a good life and I'm tired and just want this all to be over. My liver is really bad and I didn't want all that chemo treatment. It's in my bones.
Me: (starting to cry) Oh...
Bunca: Don't cry Benji, please don't cry.

i'm sure that made her feel really good.

Bunca: I'm ready to go Home.
Me: (crying) Yeah....
Bunca: We'll see each other again.

i wanted to tell her that I didn't want her to go. that my baby needed to meet his/her great grandmother, but i couldn't get it out. didn't want to. she was still alive. i wasn't going to pretend that she had already died. yes, she was dying, but aren't we all. Since the day that we're born, we start to die.

Bunca: Did you get the blanket I made for the baby?
Me: Yeah, we got it...

i lost it. i have a blanket she made when i was born. now she had made a blanket, with the same love, for my child.

i passed the phone to Skyla so that they could talk. they talked about the baby shower, about the pregnancy, about how grateful we were for her gifts. she told Bunca that she loved her and then handed the phone back to me.

Me: I love you Bunca!(still crying)
Bunca: I love you very very much Benji.
Me: You feel better ok?
Bunca: OK.
Me: I love you.
Bunca: I love you too.
Me: Dad will be there on Thursday. Be sure to call me when he gets there.
Bunca: I will.
Me: Good-bye Bunca.
Bunca: Bye.

still crying.

The New Intellectuals

my beautiful glowing wife

I just thought I would share this since I'm so freaking proud of her. Doesn't she look amazing?! We went to our first "baby" class last night. Actually it was our second class, but this time the instructor actually showed up which was a bonus. It was kind of funny. We were pretty excited to go to class, thinking of all the wonderful things we were going to learn. Then this happened:

Instructor: you actually don't need to take this class. Nature will run its course whether or not you've taken some class. Women have been doing this since the dawn of time(ok, that last part was paraphrased)
Skyla: good thing we paid $85 so that she could say that.
Me: Yeah, but does nature tell you what to pack for the hospital?
Skyla: good point. You are a genius(ok, that last part was paraphrased).

so that was funny. We like to laugh together, which I think is the key to any successful marriage. But I digress.

the first class wasn't that informative, it was basically an overview of the class and what we'll be covering for the next 4 weeks. Like "pain", "medication", "breathing", "pain" & "medication". I think they should just say "sweet sweet epidural". Skyla's totally looking forward to that. I'm interested in finding out what the positives and negatives are concerning an epidural. I figure if there weren't any negatives, doctors would be handing out epidurals like it was candy and as my wife always says "YES, PLEASE!"(about epidurals, not candy). just something I'm interested in.

at the end of class she offered up a relaxation technique that we could all use in the birthing rooms. I think it was the visualization technique. she started by playing some soft lulling music, then asked us to close our eyes. She then began reading a very descriptive scene on an empty beach, how the sand felt on your feet, the sun warming your face. she had this great irish accent and I was totally falling asleep. Then Skyla started laughing, or was it me? there we were giggling together. my guess is we won't be using that technique.

all in all, it was an ok class. yeah, we're totally ready for this baby now....

My Day So Far...

so i haven't done anything today at my job. seriously, i haven't done one thing that is in my job description. i'm not even aware what's in my job description, but i'm fairly certain that doing nothing isn't in there. god, i hate my job. it's not that i'm lazy or even just bored with the work i do. it's that i have a total of 8 hours of work to do and i have to figure out a way to spread it over 40 hours, an entire week. i use to thinking surfing the internet and getting paid for it would be a pretty sweet job. i have since changed my mind. i have been to espn.com, yahoo.com, google.com, i have signed up for every fantasy sport you can name. i check my email one thousand times a day and yes, i have multiple accounts. i get so terribly bored that i've taken up smoking to get out of the office. i sometimes go sit in the bathroom and play backgammon on my cell phone (on a side note that cell phone is a freakin cheater!). i print pages off the internet and sit at my desk "analyzing account data" endlessly. god, i hate my job. i've started IM'ing people i don't even like. it usually goes something like this

Me: Hey, what's up?
Them: Not much. You?
Me: You know work...
Them: Yeah.
Me: Ok, bye.
Them: Bye.

i've found some great games online like this one here. it's basically a ripoff of Mike Tyson's Punchout, but totally addictive. once you're done beating everyone, then you go for the high score. god, i hate my job....

Whew!! Glad that's over...

so i had an interview yesterday with NIKE...i think it went well, but you never know. I got
the feeling that they liked me, but i'm kind of impartial, cause i love myself. it was pretty
stressful and rigorous. i was surprised by how difficult it is to improvise. i mean, when they
ask for specific examples of "a time when you set a goal and followed through with it and what you learned.." and you have to kind of take something off the top of your head. that was hard. usually i can talk for hours about unimportant things and complain about my current job to anyone who will listen. but when put on the spot? not so much...

so that being said (what exactly did i say?), i felt pretty good after it was done. I was professional (wore a suit), made them laugh (piece of cake) so we shall see if I get the job. Now it's just a waiting game, but for a whole week i was nervous about it. i'm glad it's over and hope they give me a shot. think of all the great discounts i'll get!!!

Interesting

...So this is the blogger experience huh? I sound as though I've experienced something, but in
reality that couldn't be farther from the truth. Maybe in awhile I'll get some sort of tingle feeling in the bottom of my feet, but right now..nothing.
Just thought I'd start this thing by posting a short little blurb, just to see how it looks...on your
marks? Get set? Go!