Monday, February 6, 2012

The Thing About In-Laws....

My daughter-in-law Jessica is a beautiful, bright, articulate, hard-working, independent woman.  They chose to live in Manassas to be close to us because they knew they were going to have kids and they wanted us to be able to enjoy them.

That being said, we do most of our communicating thru Shayne.  They are a very busy little family and lots of times we will go weeks with only seeing Shayne as he drops off and picks up the grandbabies.

Jessica has been gravely ill.  She is slowly getting better but we are still plenty worried. 

 Last night Larry and I were thinking about Jess and thought back to the summer when Grey was born, when Jessica did the greatest thing ever for Larry.

Grey was born on Monday and went straight to the NICU.  Larry's dad (Pop) fell on Wednesday and also went into the ICU. 

And thus began Larry's most difficult summer of his life.

Grey came home the next Monday, just about the same time that we were told that Pop was not going to come home.  The fall revealed an underlying condition and he was not going to get better.

Larry spent the summer seeing Grey whenever he could and then racing to KY to see Pop.

                                             Larry and Baby Grey at the NICU

It was difficult, celebrating Shayne becoming a new dad, while telling his own dad good-bye.  He was loving being a grandfather to Grey, while his own childrens' grandfather was slipping away.

We got back from the funeral late on Monday.  On Tuesday morning - out of the blue - Jess called and wanted to come by.  Maybe to bring something of Joey's back?  I don't remember;  I just know that when she handed Grey to Larry to hold, he relaxed for the first time in a couple of months.  He just sat and rocked and looked at that 2 month old baby and no one else existed.

After a few minutes Jess asked if we would mind watching Grey for a few minutes while she ran over to Target.

It was the first time we had ever watched Grey by ourselves.

I don't think I even held him that day.

How Jess knew that Larry needed to hold Grey that day is still a mystery.  But it worked.  It helped.

I sure hoped that we thanked her profusely.

If we didn't then, I am now.

Thank you Jess.  You are awesome.

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