Wednesday, October 27, 2010

You'll Forever Be In Our Hearts and We'll Miss You

Alice Pauline McCoy
February 14, 1937 ~ October 18, 2010
Rest In Peace, Dear One
We Will Forever Miss You!!
The next several posts are for you to read, but I'm sharing many recent pictures for my son, Brett, who currently is deployed to Afghanistan in the United States Air Force.  He was very, very close to his Grandmother and wasn't able to come home to see her or for her services. 
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On October 12th, my Mother~in~law went into the hospital for what we all thought was going to be a very simple eye surgery.  She had glacoma for several years.  Her eye doctor said she needed surgery for the glacoma, but they agreed to put it off.  But then the last time she was in to see him he urged her to have the surgery to hopefully preserve her eyesight!  The surgery was very successful and she came through it fine.  In a few short minutes afterward, a number of things transpired which would take too long to put on here.  They ended up putting her in a medical induced coma but she had issues with her heart that nobody knew about and it just couldn't take the stress of everything.  The last four plus years she never had a pain free day.  She was in a terrible car accident in September of 2006 with many, many serious injuries including head trauma.  Over the years, she's had several serious head injuries which the doctors think may have contributed to the beginning of Alzhemizer's.  Her mind was still pretty good for all she had been through.  Her major problems were at night time! 
 Dennis' sister called the day of the surgery to tell us what happened and the doctor's thought that by the following morning she would wake up and pull through the ordeal, but when Dennis called them back the next day, he found out she had taken a turn for the worse and that the doctor's said they didn't think she'd make it through that day!  He immediately got plane tickets to fly out that same afternoon.  Again, to make a real long story short, after the family discussed what they were going to do, the decision was made to remove the tube.  You see, when she was still in good health and her mind was very good, she made Dennis promise her that he'd never leave her on life support.  So, to grant her wishes they agreed to take her off that and she was able to breathe on her own for about nine hours.  Then God sent his angels to carry her Home to be with Him!
 We will truly miss her!!  She was a wonderful Mother to her two children!  She took awesome care of them as they were growing up.  If it had not been for her, Dennis wouldn't be where he's at today nor be the man he is.  She was his best friend and he is really hurting!  She was also the best Grandmother a kid could ask for.  Our boys were blessed to have her for their Grandmother!!  When they were pretty young, they would go to Gram & Pap's for several weeks during the summer.  They would have a blast with her.  She would do just about anything that they asked her to do and believe me, that was anything that a young boy could think of :o)  I remember wondering every summer when they returned home what they would bring with them.  One time, they found two snow white kittens and she brought them home for the boys to enjoy.  Another time, we had to bring a dog home that was found at a park, because she thought the boys just had to have it :o)  She loved the boys!!  They never did any wrong in her eyes :o)))  She was also a wonderul Mother~in~law to me.  She taught me many things ~ probably the number one thing was how to be a good shopper.  Oh, did she love to shop!!  The last time we were there this past summer, we were running the roads looking for sales.  We always had a good time together.
 My Mother~in~law also was a great cook!!  Up until she had the bad accident she was always cooking up a storm.  She made some of the most awesome biscuits from scratch that you've ever eaten!  She'd fry ham, fry potatoes, make a big pot of brown (pinto) beans, cook apples and have biscuits.  After the main course, she'd set a dessert of some kind ~ a yellow cake with homemade thick chocolate fudge like icing on the table for everyone to dig into.  Then she'd start to quarrel at Dennis asking him when he was going to go on a diet and lose weight.  How could you diet when you even thought about going to her house?  Impossible!!  At Christmas, she'd bake upteen kinds of cookies, make several kinds of fudge and give most of it away!  Her heart was made of gold!! 
 I said she was little but what a mighty lady she was!  She may have been petite, but when she spoke everyone listened as she had something to say. 
She had planned to Grand Cayman this Fall to visit us, but unfortunately it didn't happen.  She really was looking forward to that.  When we still lived in Ohio and my Mother was living with us, Alice would drive up sometimes by herself to visit.  I remember her coming up several times during the Summer when our Church would be in Vacation Bible School with the children.  As Dennis & I would have to go to the Church earlier for preparations, she would cook dinner and then bring my Mother to VBS!  Like I said, she had a heart of gold.  She'd do anything for just about anyone.
 This is a picture of one of her roses that was just bursting in bloom this summer when we visited there.  Dennis' dad told us with tears streaming down his cheeks as we were getting ready to leave to fly back to Cayman after the funeral that he's going to have to dig up the rose bush.  It was one of her favorites and it's to painful for him to look at!  The rose reminds me so much of Alice ~ just bursting forth with a sweet smelling fragrance and beauty!
As the title post says,
"You'll Forever Be In Our Hearts and We'll Miss You!"

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I never had the privilege of knowing Alice very well, but I felt like I did. Often heard wonderful things about her. Sounds like she was a great lady, and I know you will both miss her a ton. We'll be thinking about you and praying for you during the rough times ahead.

Much love,
Charlotte

Dorcas said...

Charlotte.....
Yes, she was one great, spunky little lady! Thank you for your thoughts, prayers and beautiful flowers we received from the family today! How thoughtful of all of you.
Love to you, too!!

Anonymous said...

I was just reading your blog and learned about the passing of Dennis' mother. I am so sorry, please give my sympathy to Dennis. I know it must be very difficult for you all. I have not gone through it myself, so I can't really feel what you have been going through. Prayers your way,
Doug C

Dorcas said...

Doug.....
Thank you!! It's so hard to lose your parents. We appreciate your prayers!!