Posts Tagged ‘Family’

Today we say good bye

Thursday, September 3rd, 2009

This past week has been a rough one. I have been writing on this blog about my brother’s wife Diane and her battle with cancer. Diane passed peacefully on the evening of Aug 25. She was diagnosed exactly one year earlier, and my brother and niece were optimistic about the bone marrow transplant, but it was not to be. Tom is taking it well, because he knows she is no longer in pain.

It was evident that Diane and Tom had touched many, many lives. The wake for Diane was on Friday, and to see a line out the door of the funeral home with people waiting for as much as an hour and a half to talk to Tom and Debbie. Well that was just amazing to see.

The funeral was held on Saturday, that was hard for everyone. Tom was doing very well up to that.. He was good at the wake, but I could tell that this was going to be a very hard day. Diane was laid to rest in the plot is right next to her daughter Cindy.

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…just to be there.

Monday, September 1st, 2008

I talked to my parents today to nail down some of the details on us traveling to Des Moines later this month. We were going to change our tickets to fly out in November for the wedding, but the airlines wanted a 120% premium to change our tickets to a flight in November. Unreal.

Our conversation was dominated with talk of Diane and Tom. Tom has been spending most of his time at the hospital. He told mom that Diane is having good days and bad days… Sunday was a bad day. The type of leukemia Diane has is called Acute myeloid leukemia, she will be in the hospital for the next 3-4 weeks. Tom created a page at CaringBridge so family and friends can communicate with Diane while she is in the hospital.

Since we have the ticket to Des Moines, we are going to use them to be with my brother and sister in law. I feel that there is really nothing I can do than just be there. Maybe that is all that is needed.. just to be there.

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Cancer… a scary disease that effects everyone

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008

I got a call Monday night from my sister Jan informing me that my sister-in-law was just diagnosed with leukemia. This is devastating to the whole Anderson family. Tom, my brother, told our parents face to face, I am glad about that. Mom does not handle this type of information well.

I talked to Mom last night and she told me that Diane was admitted to the hospital and would be there for the next month. That was a surprise that they would admit her so soon and for such a long time. This is putting all too much pressure on my brother’s family because my niece’s wedding is just 3-4 weeks away. Right now, everything is up in the air.

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Happy 4th

Friday, July 4th, 2008

What can I say, our blog is out dated! I’m sitting outside on our patio enjoying this beautiful 4th of July with the family. We were talking about weddings, birthdays, and anniversaries that are coming up in the family. My in-laws just celebrated their 60th anniversary yesterday. What a milestone! It’s going to be so rare for people in our generation to reach that many years.

Well let me tell you what’s been going on in the life of our family.
There’s been a few changes. Scotty started a new job with a company called Bantu about two month ago. He is no longer with AOL. He is still adjusting to the civilian/military world again and the bureaucracy that goes along with it. His commute is now about 10 miles shorter which will save on gas.

Erika spent this week here with us. She goes back tomorrow. She is on the hunt for a full-time teaching job so she can begin to enjoy her after-college life.

Amanda is beginning her sophmore year in college. She is transferring to Liberty this upcoming semester where she plans to pursue a Marketing/Business Bachelor’s Degree.

Nothing much is going on in my life. I still enjoy my job very much. Summer is my favorite time of the year. I love to sit outdoors and enjoy the weather. I know some of you are thinking that I’m probably nuts, but what can I say. I absolutely, hate too much cold weather. I think I’m allergic to winter.

Hope everyone has an enjoyable 4th of July.

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Geneology

Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

Last week, I found out about this website www.geni.com which you can list your geneology and have the family continue posting their information to it. It is really cool. I started adding my relatives and as I’m entering the information, I realized that there are a lot of relatives that I have not seen or heard of in years. I’m hoping that we can continue to update so that I can see the rest of the family, and also find out my ancestry line as far back as I can. The web site is cool, guarantee you’ll love it.

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Christmas Day

Monday, December 25th, 2006

Christmas day was spent with the family. My sister had an appendectomy and was not able to join us until later on in the day. We had already opened all our gifts on Christmas Eve. We woke up and had our usual Christmas breakfast of Buscuits with Gravy. For dinner, mom made the traditional Puerto Rican dish of pernil, arroz con gandules, and lets not forget the dessert–flan. Everyone was playing with their Christmas gifts and awaiting the next day until they could use their gift cards to buy more stuff.

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Christmas Eve

Monday, December 25th, 2006

We spent the day playing dominoes and making cutout cookies, buckeyes, and chocolate covered pretzels. Instead of making breakfast this morning, I baked the cookies that we were going to decorate later that day. Mitzie and Shirley decorated the cookies throughout the day and made the other Christmas goodies. The girls and their cousin Krystle did some last minute Christmas shopping. I spent the day playing dominoes with my in-laws.

We spent the night eating, playing more dominoes, and basically enjoying everyone’s company. We had a wonderful dinner of ham and arroz con gandules, (rice with chick peas). One of the traditions in the Torres family is to open one present on Christmas Eve, then open the rest on Christmas day. So when we stopped playing dominoes around 11-midnight, we gathered in the living room expecting to open just one present. When we ended around 1:30 am. All the presents were opened in a frenzy, mounds of wrapping paper and boxes strewn around the room.

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We have arrived….

Saturday, December 23rd, 2006

The trip out here was uneventful. We left around 4 am, got in Indy around 3 pm. Mitzie was happy to see her sisters, and it was good to see Jose and Elsie. We found out when we got to Shirley’s house that Elsie, the oldest sister, was admitted to the hospital for appendicitis. It looks like she will be in the hospital through Christmas.

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Words you don’t want to hear

Saturday, June 24th, 2006

At some time in your life you will hear the words “I have some bad news”. For some, it will be the loss of a job, others it will be the doctor giving you the diagnosis. Some will be told face to face, some will be told over the phone.

For me, it was on my cell phone while I was shopping at Kohls. My sister-in-law told me of the death of my brother. It seemed like the whole world started spinning in slow motion, I could not believe the news. “He died this morning from a heart attack” she said. I stopped listening sometime after that and I slowly handed my phone over to my wife. At that point, the problems I had, seemed small and insignificant.

My mind raced to when we were kids, the teasing and torture that an older brother, I am the youngest, inflicts to a younger brother. To the time I called him on autovon because of some girl problem that I had. To that summer in ‘79 when my oldest brother and I drove down to Clovis New Mexico to see him. It was the first time I drove a stick.

I spoke with my remaining brother this evening, he has had his own struggles as his daughter was killed in a car accident. We talked about how each were feeling, sharing our memories of our brother. tallking about how the other members fo the family were doing…

Both of us shocked, at the words we don’t want to hear.

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