Tonight I had to do something incredibly hard. Something that is immensely difficult and with no easy way of doing so. I had to tell my children that their grandfather will be passing away soon.

Some may know from my tweets via Twitter that my father has been battling cancer. Unfortunately, his battle will be coming to an end soon. His cancer has aggressively spread, even forming a tumor in his brain. For months, he's been slowly losing his motor skills but during the last several weeks has progressively & severely gotten worse. This past week had been especially hard since it was the first time I was unable to understand anything he said, his speech brought down to an unrecognizable mumble. When I saw him tonight, I realized the end is near. I can just see it in his eyes and his lack of coherence. 

I truly didn't want to have my children see him in this state but they insisted, wanting to see the grandfather they adored & tell him that they loved him before he passed on. It's an unimaginably hard decision to make and even more difficult to do, but I also know the closeness my children have with their grandfather and how important it was for them to be there. My dad had a brief moment of lucidity where he recognized his grandchildren and gave them each a kiss. My mom asked if he loved them and nodded yes. When the girls left the room, I cried.

I'll be talking with my children about all of this during the week and helping them cope with whatever questions or emotions they may have. I'm happy, at least, that the last thing they got from their grandfather was an "I love you", even if it was just a nod.

