Death, Leaves and Rain

So Ty and I go to meet my grandma (in town for conference) and Mom at my great-aunt's house today. We're going to go out to lunch. I thought they said noon, but it turns out they said 12:30, so we're quite early. It's at a retirement residence, and I think of just going up and visiting with my aunt, but I'm not sure which apartment is hers, so Ty and I just wait outside on the nice swing they have.

I've met this aunt before--she's 96--but it's been a few years and I'm actually looking forward to getting to know her better. (She's really my Grandpa's cousin whom we just call "aunt") Anyway, Mom and Grandma finally come and Ty is so excited to see them. We make our way to Auntie's door, but there's no answer. Her paper is still by the door. Grandma mentions that she didn't answer the phone when she called earlier. We try the knob. It turns. We call out her name. No answer. Could she have gone down to the cafeteria for lunch? Grandma goes inside and a second later calls out to my mom, "She's still in bed! Could she be dead?" My mom, an experienced RN goes in to take her pulse. I take Ty out in the hall. Mom comes out, and nods--she's gone.

Hmmm...it's a bit unsettling. My first thought is my son--although he doesn't understand this, he doesn't need to be around it, and we don't need to be in the way. And since we're obviously not going out to lunch now, I say that Ty and I will leave. I look at my Grandma. My 91 year-old Grandma, who says repeatedly to us not to shed a tear when she goes because she's the happy one, is shedding a tear to herself. I hug her and my mom goes to find the administrator. I'm sad I didn't get to know this lady more before she passed.

Later on in the day, Brad and I dress Ty up and head toward the mountains. The fall leaves are PERFECT right now, and since Ty's b-day is in a couple weeks, we think we'll try to take his 2-year old pictures on our own in the beauty of the leaves rather than hassle at JCPenney again. Oh, it is gorgeous!!! We get a couple of pics and then the rain comes pouring down!!!! It was clear the whole way up, but it has to start right when we start! Oh well...we'll see how they turn out. We drive toward the sunny part of the valley and find a little park with an old pioneer cabin that's pretty cute. We take some picks there. Little kiddo isn't the best smiler in the world for the camera, so we'll see. We may end up at JCPenney in a week or two!