Tonight I finally cooked that Thanksgiving Turkey I never made on Thanksgiving. I bought it to make Thanksgiving dinner with Marty in our home. That didn't happen because he was in the hospital. How foolish I was when I told the nurse the second day he was in the hospital that Marty needed to be out of the hospital by next Wednesday so that he could do Smooshing with Marty at The Meadows.

Now I am making soup stock from the bones and drippings. The rest is on a gift certificate. No, really, it's cut up in pieces to make turkey salad for the trip to Florida. More ways to save money for the trip. Marty would be proud of me.

He was fine that Sunday we all went shopping at Walmart and then out to dinner. Wham bam, two days later he was in the hospital with pneumonia and a blood infection. Two days after that he told Sue that he wanted to fight this, he wanted to live. That night he coded and they brought him back. Two days after that they had him on a ventilator with a tube down his throat.

We have been through life and death with Marty so many times over the last 10 years that we truly (and so did he) thought this was just one more in a series of things he would beat. It seemed impossible that someone as strong as Marty could finally succumb to the thing that has been slowly killing him for 28 years. It still seems impossible. It still seems unreal that this has happened. It's still unimaginable that he is physically gone from us now.

He was such a fighter. If you had known the odds he has beaten so many times. Seen him fight off things the doctors gave him no hope to live through. This just can't be real.

Sue was talking about things Marty had done for her while she was growing up last night. They weren't really things I think she saw as him having done for her so much as she was just telling stories about him, stories I have heard a dozen times or more over the years. Stories I can tell from memory myself now.

Because I am hearing the stories from a slightly different perspective right now, what I got out of all these tales last night was one thing: Marty was her advocate. He protected her from world, as any good father would want to do with their only child. He saved her repeatedly from the repercussions of a cruel world and her own actions, over and over again. And I personally as a parent would probably have done the exact same things as he did if it was within my power to do so to protect my child.

Back when we all lived together in Florida, Marty and I spent a great deal of time with each other. I worked nights at Disney and would come home in the morning to coffee freshly brewed and maybe toast and egg or a bagel if he felt up to "cooking". Sue would be off at work and K at preschool. So we had plenty of alone time to really get to know each other. Those were great times listening to his stories and discussing world affairs and such. It was during that time that I grew to love Marty for just being Marty and not because he was my father in law who I had to love because he was Sue's Dad. He ceased just being Sue's Dad to me and became Marty, my friend.

I think I have made it pretty clear that Marty gave us nearly everything we own in life. He bought us the house we placed on our property in Arkansas when Sue and I were first together. It wasn't that we didn't already own the property (well, I owned it), but the house that was on that property was a shithole and he refused to have his coming grandchild live in a shithole. Imagine this, that was my land, he placed a house on my land which only increased my equity, not something he would ever have a title to or own. That cost him over $35,000 to do all that, a risk he took with me that he was not just pissing his money away on something his daughter and grandchild may or may not ever reap the benefit of.

I could have tossed Sue out on her ear at any point. He had no idea if I would or would not do something like that. He truly did not really know me yet. He had not even met me face to face yet. I am not sure I could or would have taken that kind of risk on a stranger I barely knew. Maybe he was a good judge of character, I am not sure, but for some reason he trusted me. Now I will never know why. I never asked that question, I never had the chance. Words left unspoken, something I will always speculate about. What had I done to gain this great man's trust?

When we decided to move to Florida after he fell in the middle of the night and we feared for him being alone anymore, I sold the property with the little house Marty gave us and gave him all the money, including my own personal investment in the original property. A risk I was willing to take with him, he had trusted me, now I was trusting him. I was 45 years old and that little 5 acres was all I had to show for my whole life's work. I was trusting him with my everything now.

While we were still there on our little Arkansas farm, Sue asked him to buy us a riding lawn mower. Marty had no idea how big 5 acres was, nor how much work it was to keep it mown with a push mower. He declined Sue's request and so, I continued to mow the lawn the old fashion way and died nearly every time I had to mow it to keep the grass down in order to keep the snakes away from the house. Trust me, we had a bevy of rattlers and copperheads and the occasional cotton mouth come up from the creek. Then we moved to Florida, to a small place he liked to call the farm. Five acres in the middle of repossessed swamp land. More palmettos and palm trees than anything else, but still a couple of acres that had to be mowed every week.

And so I set about mowing the lawn on my day off every week. Still using the push mower. It's hot in Arkansas, very hot, but not the Africa hot it is in central Florida. After about the second or third time he saw me come in from mowing the lawn and saw that it took me hours to recover from mowing and doing the yard work, he grabbed me and took me running (not walking)down to Home Depot to buy a riding mower. I think he wanted me to live or something. He apologized for not understanding just how physically demanding mowing 3 acres of grass was in 100 degree weather. I don't think I ever saw him more concerned over my health as he was the day we ran down to Home Depot.

One day, probably close to a year into our Florida excursion (I call it that because I am being kind here, it was more like a nightmare to me having to live in that kind of weather after having lived in the desert for most of my life), on a beautiful Saturday afternoon, while Sue was off working at the vet clinic and Marty and I were all alone, he called me in to have a conversation that to him was most important. At this point in time he had been studying me closely, trying to figure out if I was worthy of his real trust. I think at this point, I had managed to earn it.

He was at his desk going through his paper work (he did that a lot). He started to talk about his investments and what he did with them and things far over my feeble non-investor head. Then he told me that someone was going to have to take care of these things for him when he was gone. He was trying to explain what all there was and how it worked and again, things far over my head. I finally told him that the stock market was something I knew very little about, if he wanted me to understand these things, he would have to teach me what he did and how it was done.

As I sat on the end of his bed, watching him shuffles through papers that meant nothing to me, he began talking about Sue. He said he knew that she could not do this, nor did she have any desire nor the ability to do this, and so it would have to fall to me to manage all this. There were words left unspoken as he knew I understood completely what he was saying about Sue. It's no offense to Sue, she just had and has no desire to have anything to do with stuff like that. After a moment or two he looked me directly in the eye and said " I apologize to you, I created that and I am sorry for you that it is now you that will have to live with what I have done."  In that moment a bond was cemented forever between us. He loved her more than life its self and he had figured out that I loved her and K as much as he did. Then he asked me to take care of Sue for him, he asked me to promise him that I would always take care of Sue and Kk for him. My heart went out to him, knowing how deeply he loved and adored his only child. I had become his hope that she would be alright after his passing.

And so I promised him with all of my being that I would take care of them until my dying breath. It's hard to explain the honor I was being bestowed with in his asking me to do this for him. If you had known him you would understand that Sue and K were his everything in this life. They meant more than life to him. They were his whole world. He would have fought legions to protect and care for them. So to entrust me with his most precious thing in life was an honor indescribable. An honor and a trust that despite all the things that have happened over the ensuing years I would not dishonor by breaking my vow to him.

Marty was an incredibly loving person. He had a heart of gold and could and would give you anything within his power to give. It was just the way he was. If he loved you, there was nothing he would not do for you. He had this incredible sense of humor that bordered repeatedly on corny. He had a wry sense of wit about him that only made you adore him more. To say he was brilliant is an understatement. Sitting around talking with Marty was always a pleasure as he had fabulous stories that amused and informed and amazed you on occasion. And his love was real, once he loved you, it was unconditionally. He just accepted you for who you were and loved you.

He had this great big smile that went on for days. It was more like a grin really. And his eyes twinkled when he grinned, like a mischievous little boy about to stick his hand in the cookie jar just as soon as Mom turned her back on him. That was Marty's grin. I think what it was about Marty is that he was just genuine. Even though he was born and raised a city boy, he wasn't jaded as some city folk get. It's kind of like Marty was that nerdy little kid who grew up smart in the ways of the world, but never became full of themselves like happens to some city folk. That nerdy, but mischeivious little boy still lurkeddeep inside of him, keeping him real.

Marty is missed more than my words can explain right now. It's not so much that we will miss seeing him or whatever, it's the loss of the relationship. Oh we will miss the personal contact, don't get me wrong here, but it's so much more than that. Not having whatever it was in him that he had become to you, father, grandfather, friend, fiance, the depth of that relationship, the bond of his unconditional love with you, that's what will be missed more than anything, at least for me anyway. Not having Marty around as a major part of your world seems impossible to comprehend.

For Sue, it's harder, of course, he was her father. This is also hard to explain, but she knew she had his unconditional love always. As her advocate, he loved even when she was not necessarily lovable. Which is why he stood up for her and defended her to the end. No matter what, she was always his little girl. Always his most beloved daughter until the end. I know she knows this, he is still there loving her from where he is now. That love can and will never end. A consolation of some sort when you can no longer pick up the phone and chat about the Dolphins game or Law and Order this week.

Grief is a heavy thing. It weights you down inside. It makes everything heavy. But it's something that must be done in order to heal and go on with life. Basically it sucks to have to have a reason to grieve. It sucks having to have this particular reason to have to hurt so bad inside. This is still a bad dream that there is no waking up from. It just blows, for a variety of reasons. The last thing I said to him as we were leaving his body at the hospital yesterday was that I would and will always keep my promise to him. I probably didn't have to tell him that because if he didn't know when he was alive, he knows now that he's free.

Marty hasn't really left yet. He was in Florida last night, I know because I have been keeping tabs on him. Checking up on him. He's doing ok. He's free now. He was here too. He's making sure we are all right, Sue, K, Fran, maybe even me. He really is ok, in fact, doing fine.

He's ok and we will all be ok with time. It's just going to take time to heal from this loss, this impossible loss of someone so wonderful. Marty, you were more of a dad to me than my own father. I wish I had said that to you. I wish I had had the opportunity to let you know that kind of stuff about you. But I think you know now anyway. I think you know how much you were loved by so many people. I think you know how deeply you touched people's lifes with your unassuming genuineness. I think you know now if you didn't before.

Tomorrow is K's birthday party. I'll be watching for you. Now I am going to attempt that sleep I haven't been able to have in the last 48 hours or so. I have to be strong now. Take care of me so that I can take care of Sue and K we can all get through this next week.

I love you Poppy.....