Cindy and Greg

I give Cindy a lot of crap for all the feel good books that she buys from Amazon or the piles we find at Barnes and Noble. But today while we were having lunch she told me about Randy Pausch and his Last Lecture.

With Father’s day a few hours away, it is hard not to get choked by listening to this and his head fake. Many lessons learned and great memories of growing up came from watching this. Take an hour from your schedule and watch this or order the book from Amazon.

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While Christmas has come and gone, we have some great memories of the holiday with our families. On Sunday, December 22 we made our way up to Washington, DC for a couple of days with mom and Stephen. We stayed at the Omni Shoreham hotel, it was nice and the service was excellent. On Christmas morning we made our way up to Toms River, New Jersey to spend time with Cindy’s family. Cindy’s mom is retiring this year (today actually) and will be enjoying 2008 and beyond as a retiree. After a couple of days in New Jersey we made the trek back down I-95 stopped in traffic at the Wilson Bridge and I-95 South near Dumfries, we made it back to Williamsburg late yesterday afternoon.

While it was great to see everyone, it was very nice to be back in our own bed. I wonder if we will be able to make it till midnight on New Years Eve?

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This morning while doing some after hours work I turned on the TV in my office to find the movie Elizabethtown on HBO. I don’t know what it is about this movie but I can since the first time I saw it, I could relate to the character that Orlando Bloom plays. In the beginning of the movie Drew (played Bloom) is on the top of the world. He had created a sneaker that took 8 years to develop and was slated to take over the athletic world. Just as it was released, there was an issue that recalled the sneaker, costing his company close to one billion dollars. After being fired, he went home and was about to kill himself when he got a call from his sister, that his father had passed away. So in the course of a week, he went from being on top of the world, to the bottom of the emotional world. This is not unlike when dad passed away. Cindy and I were married on October 30, 2004 and dad passed away on Sunday, November 7, 2004. From the highest highs, to the lowest lows in a matter of 180 hours.

Looking back it is hard to believe it has been three years.  I often find myself trying to remember my last words to dad, but no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to remember what they are. I remember clearly the last time I saw him, it was the day after the wedding and we were getting ready to head back to Dumfries to get ready for our “mini-moon” to San Francisco and he was sitting in the chair in the room at Ford’s Colony. He was weak, but smiling and happy.

The movie Elizabethtown always brings back strong emotions and memories of dad for some reason, with the tears comes comfort in knowing the impact that dad made on my life. So if you get a chance, be sure to rent Elizabethtown and remember someone whom you loved.

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It is never easy when one has to deal with a life changing event be it a wedding or a funeral, but when both events happen right on top of each other, it makes for an incredibly difficult time. Friday morning, the day of Katie’s wedding (the youngest grand-daughter), our grandma passed away. As Katie began the events of the day, the hair, the nails, and she enjoyed her last few hours as a single woman, we received the news from mom that grandma had passed away. The difficult decision was made to keep the news from the bride to be (as well a the mother of the bride) as it was her day and we wanted her to have special memories of her wedding day. Not an easy decision to make, but we hoped that they would understand.

Grandma lead a long and heathly life. At 96 years old, grandma while having given up her license in the days of the Reagan presidency, lived alone until her final days. Three weeks ago grandma took a fall in her apartment and from then on it has be a difficult time trying to control her heart rate, blood pressure, and sodium levels.

The viewing is today and the funeral mass is on Monday, afterwhich grandma will be laid to rest with her husband, Alexander and next to my father.

While the world sheds a tear for the loss of a wonderful, kind, and caring woman, we are comforted by the thought she is joined again with her life partner. And we celebrate the marriage of Katie as she, on this both difficult and wonderful day, has been joined together with her life partner to carry on the messages we have learned from grandma.

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Yesterday, Cindy and I ventured out with some local friends. We headed over to Will and Erica’s house around 10:30a. Cindy got to see how awesome their lawn looks and got to meet Duke, the family dog and model for the main page of caulford.org. We got the car all packed up and headed to Richmond. It was a beautiful day and I think we all spent entirely too much money, but we had a lot of fun. I picked up an Apple TV and then later in the day Will decided he needed one as well. I think I am in the dog house with Erica.

While walking around Pottery Barn Kids, we got some great pictures of Zack sitting in a mini-chair and one in a “big boy bed.” Take a look (click on the picture below)…

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Last week I mentioned a concern I had with how the writers of The West Wing would handle John Spencer’s death in this weeks episode. I have to say it was incredibly well written. It was someone hard to watch though. Two years ago yesterday I was in New York to help mom and dad with dad’s recovery from surgery and dad was admitted to Yale New Haven Hospital.

We took dad to an appointment with Dr. Zaret, his cardiologist, at which Dr. Zaret admitted dad to Yale for observation. On Thursday of that week dad was moved to CICU in a hurry and put on a ventalator, there were concerns he would not make it through the night. I can still remember sitting in the room that night listening to the heart monitor and jumping at the slightest change in the noises. The nights to come were filled with codes, if you have never been in a hospital during a code, consider yourself among the luckiest people in the world. The alarm goes off, people literally run from every which direction and you can see in their face the results of their action as they return to their normal post. One particular night, their was a code in the CICU. The code was called for dad’s wing, all time just stopped. I ran to the window, we were in the waiting room across the courtyard, but I couldn’t see what was going on. I called the duty nurse from the waiting room and asked about dad. She said that they were in the middle of an emergency and to call back, I said I know…I want to know if that emergency is my father, she then realized I was calling from within the hospital and confirmed for me that it was not dad. She called me in a little later to sit with dad, it had been the person a couple doors down, they didn’t make it. You couldn’t help but feel guilty that you were happy it wasn’t you friend or family member. After two very long weeks dad was able to go home and while he never did fully recover, he achieved his goal, “to dance at our wedding”.

I can’t say enough good things about the folks at Yale New Haven Hospital. The folks in the CICU were incredible, Dr. Zaret, Dr. Papuc, and one hospital chaplan whose name escapes me.

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Florimontes is opening a real NY bakery right next door to its NY deli. Kaiser rolls, cheese cake, black and whites…the whole shi-bang. We can’t wait!

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