On another note . . .

This is completely off topic of our baby journey. I figure since I have no clue when God is going to bless us with another child I should find other things to blog about.

Today I am asking for prayers for my mom and her sisters, Pam and Joy.

I'll try to make the rough draft as brief as I can. Pam, as far as I know has never been a major part of Papa's life. I mean, yes she is his daughter, but from what I've known for the past 15 years she never made herself a part of his life for long or in a major way..

Joy on the other hand used to call and speak with Papa daily, and helped him all the time. Joy was always checking on Papa, and doing something for him.

Around 2003 Papa, Pam and Joy had a falling out and pretty much stopped speaking to each other. When Joy and Pam stopped speaking to Papa, so did their families, that left just my mom and us kids speaking to Papa and visiting him.

At some point Papa made Mom the sole recipient of what there was of his 'estate' . There were other things involved, but it boiled down to Papa taking Joy and Pam out of the will because they hadn't spoken in years. When mom found out she took it pretty hard. She told me about it a little while later because she had no one else to talk to about it. The hardest thing for mom was she knew carrying out Papa's wishes would put up a wall between her and her sisters. It was something I prayed about often, hoping the silence would end, they would realize no grudge was worth losing family over.

The hardest thing for me to deal with was that Papa truly felt Joy, Pam, and their families didn't care about him. It killed me knowing that he had family within minutes of him that he never saw. My cousins also lost any relationship they could have had with Papa. I know that it wasn't until I grew up I realized Papa wasn't just a grouchy old man. My cousins, I don't think, ever had a chance to picture him differently. Papa thought they didn't care, my cousins, I don't think, ever had the opportunity to learn they might care.

Most of you who take the time to read this know that Papa died in January of this year. When Papa died, of course the information about the will got out. We didn't have anymore time to try to fix the broken relationship between Papa, Pam and Joy anymore. The wall went up, and I'm asking for prayers that it might come down one day.

It killed my mom, and hurt her, she was torn between not wanting to lose her sisters, and doing what Papa wanted. Papa's wish was that she follow his wants for the will, so she tried to. I wish it had just been about money, if it was just money mom would have just split it and kept her sisters. It was never about the money, it was about what Papa asked be done.

When Joy and Pam found they were no longer in the will, they contested the will. I won't even tell you the horrible things they said about Dad, Mom, and Papa to say why the new will wasn't valid, that's all in the past and can't be undone.

This week Mom called to let me know it was finally over with. She had given Pam and Joy some money, and Papa's car if I remember right. Mom is relieved it's finally over, she hated fighting her sisters, so in one way she's glad. The thing is, Mom feels like she let Papa down in not fighting it all the way, she worries that he's upset with her now for not fighting to the finish over it.

I told Mom that Papa knows she tried. Papa knows she took it this far, and followed her lawyers advice. I can't see that Papa would hold this against her.

I'm hoping, now with the will being over, maybe the three sisters will speak again, even if they can't be friends, maybe they can be sisters again. I ask for prayers asking it to happen.

I hope Joy and Pam see what they lost with Papa, all the wasted years, and how all it did was wreck their relationship with him, and Papa died thinking his daughters didn't care. I pray Joy and Pam can see what happened between them and Papa and realize it just wasn't worth it. They've already lost their father, all three of them, I hope they don't choose to lose each other also.

Please pray for them.

When Papa passed away, the day before the actual funeral service, the pastor that would be performing the ceremony asked the family to meet him to talk to him about who Papa was. It amazed me how different Joy, Pam and their families view differed from our families view of Papa. I was shocked to see that they had no clue who Papa was anymore. Looking back I knew who they thought Papa was, because it's who I thought Papa was before 2000, I called Papa grandpa until that point - Papa didn't become 'Papa' until I finally saw 'Papa'. They saw Papa as a grumpy old man who complained a lot, who said mean things, who drank as soon as 1pm came, who would squeeze every last penny out of a dollar. They saw Papa as a man who didn't have a lot of fun, and always complained about what people did. They saw the guy that said mean things, and no matter what you did he would say you didn't do it right, or at least from what they said that was who they saw.

Joy, Pam and their families weren't there to see Papa give up smoking after 55 plus years of doing so. They weren't there when he started picking up Pepsi's rather than drinking beer all day. They didn't get to see Papa eyes light up when Jessica, my niece would run up to him and hug him and tell him she loved him. Papa would never admit that he liked it, but you could see in his eyes that he did. I don't know if they ever realized that Papa wasn't intentionally mean, he just said what he thought because he didn't lie to people. I don't know that they could imagine Papa driving a motorized wheelchair all around Busch Gardens and enjoying himself. I doubt they ever got to see Papa attempt to bowl, he had a blast at it, even though he wasn't any good. I don't know if they ever realized that Papa never asked for the things that were the most important to him. Papa would complain nonstop about the mess my nephews made whenever they were in his house, at the same time he'd talk about the crazy stuff they did for weeks later, and would ask when they would be back. Papa would complain about how noisy our whole family was when we all were at his place, but he would talk about how quite things were when we were gone. It always seemed to be the things he never said that bothered him. Papa would never admit he was lonely, but he'd ask when you were visiting again.

I cried after Joy, Pam, and their families left. Some of the tears were for missing Papa, most were not. It was at that moment that I realized that their families had no clue what they missed. I cried because of all that they never even knew they didn't have. Kelley didn't have a clue how to make me feel better when I was crying for someone else. They will never mourn the loss of Papa the way we did, because they never knew Papa the way we did.

I hope, and I pray, and I ask you to pray, that the same thing doesn't happen between Mom, Joy and Pam. I pray that at some point they will realize the past is the past, and you can't change it, but you can change the future. I can't imagine they would start talking like nothing happened, but all three of them lost their father, I pray they don't lose each other before any of them are in their graves.