death and dying

Today is the first anniversary of my "step" dad Rob's death. My grandma Bair has battled cancer for almost 2 decades and is almost ready to move on to the next world. My grandma Bennett has recently started chemo for ovarian cancer. Sucks sucks sucks. The following is an excerpt from my journal in an attempt to remember Robbie on this day:

"Robby died of a massive coronary last Wednesday at the age of 49. I got a call from mom at work that I needed to meet her and Billy at the hospital. I was first to arrive, so they took me into a conference room (No, God, tell me we don't need a conference room) with the hospital chaplain (No, God, tell me we don't need a chaplain). Some cold little woman named Dr. Brown came in and told me his heart had stopped, they'd tried everything they could to get it going again but they couldn't, he was gone already. Nice. The universe apparently doesn't think Jenny has a breaking point...
Four hours (or four months?) later we went home to tell my kids. Fuck. I'm not normally super vulgar; I attempt to use my vocabulary to uplift and edify. But Fuck. I now get to go home and tell my 8 year old autistic child and my 5 year old drama queen that their crappy year of abandonment by the men in their lives isn't over yet. 'Remember when little Zoe's grandma died last year and even though we were so sad for us we were happy for her? Well, and this'll sound a little (little?!) scary and sad but it's ok: Papa Rob had a very bad accident at work today that hurt his heart and head, and he died. Today. At work. Yes we were at the hospital. No he's not hurting. It'll be ok.' Or something like that."
The good news is, there's a victory that comes with a one year anniversary of surviving something tragic; a sense of accomplishment. We made it. We miss you and love you like crazy Robbie, but we made it. And we're happy FOR YOU...