family ties

I said i would post this, and i think i'm finally strong enough to type it up without crying, so here goes. Last weekend my parents and I went up to visit my grandfather who is in the hospital suffering from cancer. This is just me getting out some of my feelings the night after I first saw him in the hospital:

This is so hard. It was all I could do to hold my tears until i was outside in the hospital hallway with my dad. I hate that he can't be himself anymore, I hate that he's cooped up in that little room all by himself, I hate that he is too weark & tired to seem to care when i know he does, and I hate that my grandparents can't live together anymore. As my eyes get blurry with tears i just pray that I can get out all of my tears tonight so that I can be strong tomorrow. Much More Music is killing me right now playing the saddest songs one right after another. First of all - Nickelback - Photograph, sad cause it's filmed in Hanna where i'm sitting right now, then Coldplay - Fix You, and then the Tea Party - Heaven Coming Down. Maybe it just all seems sad to me because i'm sitting in my Grampa's room at the retirement lodge, alone. Here because my grandparent's house no longer belongs to them as of this month, alone because my parents are staying at my uncle's, and sad because this room is filled with pictures and memories but no grampa.

Here's a picture from earlier this year when everyone was still back in that old house, you can even see one of his cowboy pictures on the wall in the background.


I recently found this article in the Hanna Herald about my grampa (Albert Galarneau), i thought it would be nice to save:

Hanna Herald — Hanna’s Albert Galarneau and Elwood Tolton received lifetime achievement awards at the Canadian Finals Rodeo this year.
Galarneau’s son, David, accepted the award for him because he was in the Hanna Hospital and unable to make the ceremony and accept the award in person.
Tolton, who attended, said he was treated very, very well.
“They gave us rooms, box seats at the rodeo and even limo service down to Northlands.”
“I felt honoured that the Professional Cowboy’s Association was honouring us old fellows,” Tolton said.
Both Galarneau and Tolton became involved in rodeo life before the Professional Organization of Cowboy’s was formed, in 1945. [...]

Galarneau entered his first Rodeo in 1931 at Calgary under boys Steer Riding but it was not until 1936 that he won his first trophy, a silver buckle from the Sundre Rodeo.
The next year he and his horse, Ireland, won the North American calf roping championship.
He had bought Ireland for $17 but lost the horse the year after the rodeo to sleeping sickness.
“I have owned thousands of horses over the years,” Galarneau once told the Hanna Herald, “he was the only one I ever lost to brain sickness.”
His bad luck with horses flared up again when another horse was struck by lightning after being put in the pasture.
Galarneau began to borrow horses from his son, David, from then on, he said.
David Galarneau said he was always proud of his father and can remember accompanying his father to the rodeo in 1962, at 13 years old.
In 1978, Galarneau accepted a silver and gold belt buckle and the honour of being called Pioneer of Rodeo at the Calgary Stampede.
David Galarneau also remembers his father’s excitement after having been inducted into the Canadian Rodeo Hall of Fame in 1986.

(http://www.hannaherald.com/index.php?id=427)

I'm so proud of my gramma and my mom too, being so strong through all of this. Look at us, 3 generations of Galarneau women. My grandparents have been married for almost 70 years now, since my gramma was 17! My grampa is her life, without him .. oh i don't even want to think about it. When we were visiting him in the hospital, he wasn't having a very good day and he was so tired, so we were about to leave and my mom gave him a hug goodbye, and he (the tough guy that he is) said to my mom "you can give me a kiss". It was the most special moment, i just want to record all of this here so that i will be able to look back and remember.

I think i'll leave this post at that. From all of this i think i've learned to cherish my family more, and always say i love you because you never know what can happen.

Love,
Colleen