Michael here in Stephenville. Yesterday was crazy, and I must get some sleep sometime, but I will let you know a little about what happened yesterday and where we are today. About noon yesterday, Rainey called to report that Lorena's sister Angie Moreno had called from Tepic to say that Papá was not doing well at all. They did not expect him to make it through the day.
About 3:00 p.m., during 7th period, I was summoned to the office for a phone call. I suspected there was a link here, and, sure enough, it was Chris Aguilar (who has just recently arrived back here in Stephenville) calling to report the death of Lorena's father. Lorena's brother Rafael, Chris's husband, had called from Mexico to say that their father, Alfonso Aguilar Zapata, had gone to sleep this afternoon only to be discovered a while later to have died in his sleep. There are deaths to be envied, and his is one of them. Everyone there, including Lorena, is fine but very sorrowful. She announced that she and Ben had bought tickets and were heading for Fort Worth.
Rainey arrived at school shortly thereafter, holding me for a moment and crying in front of my class (which subdued them markedly.) They had requested for at least one of us to go down for the funeral (held this afternoon), so she got on the Internet and started searching for tickets. Martha, Lorena's sister living in California, was going down, but we did not know if she was going to fly into Puerto Vallarta or Guadalajara. We had already been told that no one was going to be able to go pick people up, so everyone was going to have to take a taxi to the bus station and take a bus to Tepic.
Our big concern, of course, was with Lorena. Papá was elderly, in very poor health complicated by diabetes and heart problems, and he has suffered severe depression since Lorena's mother died last Spring. I really feel that the only thing keeping him here was the desire to see Lorena recuperate. More and more, he wanted only to sleep because that was the only way he could "see his Dulce [Sweet]" (i.e. dream of Lorena's mother.) [His lungs had begun to fill with liquids earlier in the day, so I am certain that the ultimate cause of death was probably congestive heart failure.] The question is, though, what to do with Lorena. She has been receiving excellent care and has been making steady progress, but I owe tens of thousands of dollars for her care and get no help from any quarter. We can bring her back to the States where Medicaid will help us, but I fear that that is a fate worse than death because she still cannot advocate for herself, and nursing homes are woefully understaffed. Consequently, our plans are all up in the air, and we will call tonight to try to get something worked out.
Stephanie came in after school, and I told her of her grandfather's death. It took a while for her to believe me, and then she began crying very hard. I held her and asked her if she was all right. She quickly assured me that she was and that she was glad that her abuelito wouldn't have to suffer any more. However, she said that she was crying because she would miss him, and she knew how badly this would hurt her mother and Lya.
Rainey had called Kathleen Stripling and asked her to pick Lya up when she picked Molly up from school. Later, Rainey called Kathleen up again and asked her to tell Lya about the death. Lya was the one whom I had worried about most because she has always been her Abuelito's girl, and he doted upon her. Kathleen was reluctant to tell Lya, but when she finally did, Lya only said "Good," which surprised and shocked Kathleen until Lya explained that now her grandfather would not have to suffer anymore, and "He will be with my abuelita so that he will be happy again." Just as Kathleen thought that Lya was going to have no real reaction, Lya began to cry very hard, explaining that she was crying for Lorena and her brothers and sisters who had lost their father, and she was thinking of how sad they must be. Have I mentioned lately how incredibly proud I am of my girls?
It looked as though Rainey was going to have to fly down by herself, go to the bus station alone, and then travel alone to Tepic -- at about midnight. Needless to say, I was just a little concerned about her doing that in one of the largest cities in the world (and second largest city in Mexico.) [Our finances are shot anyway, so I had basically decided that none of us would be able to go.] Finally, we were able to discover that Martha, Chris and Ben were all flying into Guadalajara -- and they would all be arriving there about 10:30 p.m., so if Rainey could get there then, she could travel with them to the bus station and thence on to Tepic. At 5:30 p.m., I was finally able to secure a ticket on the last flight of the day out of DFW. The only problem was that it departed at 8:00 p.m. For an international flight, of course, we were supposed to check in two hours before departure -- and we live almost two hours from DFW (especially considering traffic that time of day.)
I bought the ticket. Rainey (who had been trying to contact her professors to tell them what was transpiring) raced home and began packing her suitcase and gathering her passport and other papers. I called Lya to tell her what we were going to do, and she requested to go, so Kathleen agreed to drop her off at the house. Then I raced home, marshaled our forces, and by 6:00 p.m. we were heading toward DFW in Rainey's car. Rainey was calling Stephi and Kathleen, trying to find the American Airlines number to tell them what our situation was. Lya was trying to call Ben and Chris to see what their situation was and to tell them what our plans were. And I was trying to watch (for what good it would have done) for highway troopers as I sped north.
Then, a few miles out of Stephenville, I happened to glance down to discover that Rainey's gas tank was on empty and her low gasoline light was on. "Oops," she said, "that came on this morning, and I was going to fill it this evening. I forgot." I sweated bullets until we reached Morgan Mill where we pulled into a quintessential Texas filling station, the only one in "town". In fact, it is the only business in town. The first pump I pulled up to did not even have a fill nozzle. The second had no glass over the gauge display and was repaired with duct tape with a sign that warned that it would not shut off automatically. Anyway, I filled the tank as Rainey and Lya went inside to get some stuff, fussing later about the stale gum they had bought but, as Rainey, said, "What should we expect from a bustling commercial center such as this."
We raced on to DFW. I tried to keep it under 90 mph and prayed that I wouldn't get a ticket. We saw several law enforcement officers, but they had other folks stopped, and I must admit that I was thankful for the misfortune of those others because it meant that the cops were too busy to get me -- and our time was just a valuable to us as the money to pay a ticket would have been.
Finally we reached the AA terminal at DFW where we raced inside -- to discover Chris and Ben waiting to get their boarding passes and to check their luggage. They had been taken to the airport by some folks from church, and if our communications had been better, we could have rode down with them. As it was, it turned out that they were on the same flight as Lorraine -- which we rejoiced over. We got them through security, and then Lya and I sat in the lobby and waited until their flight took off, just in case they had some sort of trouble.
Lya and I were starving, so I let her choose where she wanted to eat. She decided on Red Lobster "if it isn't too expensive..." I assured her that Red Lobster would be fine. She is a wonderful trooper, and she has always been very frugal knowing the condition our finances are in, so she was looking for the cheapest thing on the menu when she mentioned that she had never had lobster or crab. I know she had, but she probably wasn't old enough to remember it, so I ordered her a huge crab/lobster combo while I asked for a calamari/clam appetizer. The day had been horrible, so we splurged, held hands at the table and talked, especially about Lorena and Papá, and had a wonderful meal. Lya really got excited about cracking the crab claws, and she got very adept at digging the meat out -- and feeding it to me after she filled up.
We left the restaurant about 10:30 p.m., and I think Lya was asleep before we pulled out of the parking lot. We got home about midnight -- and I am desperately feeling it now. We did not hear anything from Rainey or Lorena, so we must assume that all is well. We will call tonight to see how they are doing and to see what plans are being made.
Thank you all for your prayers and your support. We will get through this. I really hurt for Lorena again because she was unable to ever tell her father goodbye or how much she loves him. I know that he knows that, and I know that she knows that he knows, but it still hurts. And we all believe the big show is yet to come, but it still hurts now. Lorena's miracle continues, though. To God be the glory.
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