Pahaw

I'd like to tell you all a story, if you have the time. A story about two people, called Mahaw and Pahaw.

Mahaw and Pahaw are two wonderful, amazing people. They are known for being good, strong, sturdy people with morals and old-fashioned work-ethic, as well as great friends. They've never met a stranger, and treat everyone they meet like family. Their grandkids' friends are their grandkids, too, and their house is always open to any 7th-cousin-by-marriage-twice-removed who might come through town. They come from a generation that quit high school before they graduated, because the family farms needed tending, and Great-Granddad needed helping keeping his carpentry business alive. The entire community they come from knows them as Mahaw and Pahaw, Inyanna's grandparents.

Pahaw was diagnosed with Tuberculosis when Inyanna was in eighth grade. The doctor’s don’t know where he contracted it, but they knew it would kill him if they didn’t do something, so they gave him poison, masquerading as medicine, to kill the disease hiding in his lungs. The problem was, the medicine they gave him to heal him wasn’t picky about was it poisoned. It almost killed him, and he’s never been the same since. He doesn’t heal as quickly, or as fully, as he used to. He’s just a little slower, a little more worn. You'd never know if you met him, though.

In 2005, he had a heart attack, and an emergency quadruple bypass. Six months of recovery, and he was good as new, working at a cement plant and riding his Red Wing Motorcycle across the state with motorcycle gang (all of whom are over 55) with his lady sitting on the back, and Rving to every lake in Oklahoma with his buddies each summer.

This fall, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The doctors have given him a good prognosis so far, and they've started chemo. But, the doctor and gas are expensive, so they're having to move. Mahaw had to quit her job to take care of him. Now, lively, wonderful Pahaw, who used to ride motorcycles and build houses and fry Thanksgiving turkeys is a tired man with hollows under his eyes, who falls asleep in front of the TV because it takes to much to walk to the bedroom to sleep at night. Their funds are exhausted, he's exhuasted, and the doctors are afraid that the cancer might have spread to his bone marrow or his lymph nodes.

If that happens, there won't be much they can do for Inyanna’s Pahaw. He's just too weak, and been through too much, for them to safely do much more than they already are. They've told Mahaw, and their daughter, my Mom, and me, but they haven't told him yet. They’re afraid if they tell him, he'll stop fighting, and he has to fight the chemo, or the dosage is high enough, it might kill him.

But Pahaw knows. He's known longer than anyone else has. He's been trying to prepare his family for this for a while, and they've pushed it away. He's always been the rock, the strength, the fixer, the wisdom and the discipline. No one wanted to know.

This would be so much easier for everyone if it were just a story. There is nothing I wouldn’t give right now to make it just a story, just words on a paper, that I can push a button and delete if I don’t like the wording or the ending.

But I woke up this morning and realized it was a reality.

So, you can see, this is difficult for everyone now. Mom's not taking it well that she’s going to lose her Daddy, and Mahaw's stretched too thin with time and worry and money. My little brother is oblivious, and my Dad's a funeral director, so he's helping Pahaw with plans.

Anything you can offer them, any peace, or hope, or wishes for acceptance, they could all sure use.

Thank you all, so much.

Love, Light, and Laughter,
Inyanna