Christmas Plans & Grandma Ricks

In case you are wondering what our Christmas plans are, I'll tell you. I haven't been home for the whole Christmas Eve/Christmas morning thing since the year 2000. I did Christmas in Chile with my family twice, but those were non-traditional (especially since we spent most of Christmas at a resort one of the times). And since we've been married Samuel and I have have always done our Utah Christmases at home alone, and visited my family for dinner on Christmas night. So this year our plan was to actually be at home for Christmas - and I have been SOOOO excited for this!


Recently, however, Samuel's grandma was diagnosed with lung cancer. (This is the grandma that we lived with for six months.) The cancer is incurable - she has three years at most if she does radiation, but they don't even necessarily recommend it. The good news is that she is in her 80s and grandpa is in his 90s, so as long as the doctors can help her go relatively painlessly, its not too sad for Samuel. At this point she probably will want to get out of her disease-ridden body, anyway. And there is a huge party in the Spirit World waiting for her, too. I just hope grandpa follows quickly so that he doesn't get too lonely!

So because this may be their last chance to be with her at Christmas, Samuel's family is coming up on Saturday the 22nd and staying until Thursday the 27th. They are staying at our house, so we'll spend a lot of our Christmas break with them. But they were nice enough to let us still do Christmas at my parents house (especially since they will be with grandma a lot of that time any way). So I get the best of both worlds this Christmas!

Okay, I just got done with this post and realized that a lot of you guys might think I am treating this whole Grandma cancer thing really lightly. So I guess I need to explain that I am one of those people who is hardly phased by death. It just doesn't scare or bother me. I mean, we all are going to do it. And I know where we go, and I know that we resurrect and get to be together again. So I just don't get why it is so tragic. Okay, so a family with three young kids and a pregnant wife who lose their dad in the army breaks my heart. That is so sad! But an older person who has lived a good, faithful life? Really. When my parents die, no matter how old I am, I'll be sad, but only because I'll miss them here on earth. My grandpa died a year ago and I have yet to cry. I mean, I love him to death, and I do miss him, but his body was so broken, that I felt so relieved for him to finally get rid of the thing! And now when he gets it back he'll actually be able to run. For the first time since he was five. Okay, there you go. My philosophy on death. What a random post. Just my style.