Thursday, August 21, 2008

A Death in the Family

Just as Josh was getting off shift last Thursday morning he got a call from his mom. Helen, Josh's stepmother had called her to tell her Josh's dad was given 2-14 days to live. He had been battling cancer for about 2 years. We packed very quickly and took care of a couple things, but we left about noon that same day to go see Josh's dad in the hospital.

We got to the hospital, which was on the outskirts of San Antonio about 10PM. He was still awake when we got there and he got to see Josh and talk to him for a few minutes. He also got to see Ryan for the first time. He was very tired and weak, so he went to sleep soon after that. We stayed at the hospital for about an hour and a half. He was only breathing 6 times a minute when it should be double that or more. Josh being a Paramedic knew it was bad.

We followed Josh's sister, Celeste back to Josh's dad's house and we stayed there for the night. About 4 in the morning we were woken up by Josh's sister, Dusti. Her mom had called and said that the nurses said it would be best to go ahead and call all the kids to come up to the hospital. He was only breathing 2 times a minute at this point. I think we got at the hospital around 4:30am. They took him off the breathing machine after all the kids had got there and said their goodbyes. He continued to breathe after they took him off the machine for about an hour and a half. At about 6am Friday August, 15th Tim Butterworth passed away.


It was very terrible to see the life drain from his body, but we all knew we'd see him again one day. Last year when he had his lung surgery he accepted Christ into his heart and was saved!! Josh and I didn't know this until right before he died so it was a happy moment amidst a terrible one to learn he was not lost.

The doctor called Josh and his siblings as well as his stepmother into a private room. The doctor wanted to know how they all felt about donating his corneas. It would help someone to see that otherwise couldn't. All of them except the youngest brother, Edward agreed that it would be what he would want to do to help someone see. He was angry and upset and didn't want his dad to go through anymore. They all explained that he wouldn't be going through it, he was already at peace and this would help someone have sight to see their loved ones.


We stayed at their house until about 3:30 that day. The funeral wasn't set to be until Wednesday morning and it was only Friday. Josh and I had to figure out whether or not to drive back home and then back again on Tuesday. He called his work and they had covered his shift for him which meant he had one week before he had to go back to work. We didn't want to put Ryan through 3 more 10 hour trips so we decided to stay at my grandpa's house in Corpus Christi. We were only 3 hours away vs. the 10 hr. trip. He was happy we were coming to stay with him.


In Corpus Ryan got to meet more family that he had never met before including his Great Grandpa Stubblefield. He had cousins and aunts lovin on him and it was wonderful. We stayed with my grandfather until Tuesday morning. It was a nice visit and Josh and Ryan even got to go to the beach for the 1st time.

Tuesday afternoon was the viewing at the funeral home. We got back into Cibolo at 1 pm and the viewing started at 4pm. We all went to the viewing and it was hard to see everyone so sad. They had posters with pictures in the lobby of family and pictures of Tim. There was one of him holding Josh when he was a baby and pictures of Ryan and Josh and I. We stayed for a little over 2 hours and while we were there Josh's Aunt Bea gave him 100 dollars cash out of nowhere so we could stay in a nice hotel.

Josh, Ryan, and I went to the Atrium Inn to get a place to stay the night. We walked over to the Deny's after that since we hadn't eaten since breakfast and it was 6:30-7 now. It was great and then we went back to our room for a bit to rest. A little while later we went to the store to get some more formula for Ryan and a few other things we needed.


Wednesday August, 20 at 10am was the funeral and Josh was one of the pall bearers. It was a nicely done service and there was standing room only for the friends and others. Tim had worked for CPS in Cibolo, TX for 32 1/2 years before he finally had to retire. There were so many men/women from CPS there it was crazy!

After the funeral we went to New Braunfels to the cemetery to say our last goodbyes. The family had red roses and even baby Ryan got a little rose to put on Grandpa Tim's casket. All the pall bearers took their ties off and put them on the casket. Tim would hate to wear ties and he'd be taking them off as soon as he could, so that was kinda a "here's to dad" thing.


We got pictures of the family before we headed back to Arkansas. His family there treated us like we had always been there and were loving and hospitable. We had never met most of them. Josh had met Dusti maybe once when he graduated college 10 years ago. They all loved Ryan and loved on him. I was pleasantly surprised how when even his step-brothers would refer to Josh as their brother when introducing him to other family members. Josh felt very loved and felt like he belonged. I was so very happy they treated us like FAMILY and we did the same. I told Josh, isn't it kinda weird in a good way when you hear them say this is my big brother Josh? It's kinda sad because Josh and I both felt closer to them than Josh's brother that he grew up with here in Arkansas. The Texas siblings treated us more like family than his brother ever has! It's good to know we have family like that in Texas we can keep in touch with and visit :) They kept saying how proud that his dad was of Josh and how much he loved and thought of him and his grandbaby, Ryan. He carried a picture of Ryan with him.

0 comments: