Rites... updated ... and updated again.

Before I moved away from the only state I had ever lived, I made a difficult but deliberate decision. I did not make the 12-hour trip to see my grandfather. I wanted to remember him how he was during my previous visit, about a year before. I knew I might live to regret that decision, and I didn't make it lightly.

About an hour ago, I was told that Grandpa is en route to Salt Lake City to undergo surgery after taking a fall. More details as they become available. **Update: he broke his hip, had surgery, developed pneumonia, is now doing better, and I've talked to him on the phone.**

He's worked so bloody hard his whole life. First as a miner, then as his town's garbage collector, then as a thoughtful and supportive grandfather to his fifteen living grandchildren, many of whom had no other grandparents except for him. He would say to me fondly, "You were the first one to call me grandpa."

During my tearful call to TW, she offered to take him flowers at the hospital tomorrow. Her angelic presence and willingness to be at his bedside in my stead deepens my devotion to her. That's what's so wondrously surprising - that my devotion could grow any deeper than it already was.

**SECOND UPDATE: Just heard that he's suffered a stroke. As of yesterday he was doing much much better, was actually sitting up, eating solid food, coherent, and was being transferred to a rehab facility sooner than initially expected. Sometime during the night he had a stroke, his pneumonia is back with a vengeance, and his body is full of infection. If the antibiotics are going to work, we're told, they will do so within the first 24 hours. And so we wait. And I fight back tears at work while coping by writing this update.**