R.I.P. Uncle Ted

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It is with sadness dear reader that I tell you about the loss of our Uncle Ted. He was the great Uncle of my husband and he was 88 years old. I first learned about Uncle Ted when we first married. He was the Uncle that lived in San Diego. My husband's grandmother Ann was Ted's big sister. She was 11 years older than Ted and very protective of him.

He was the youngest of many children and was only a baby when they all came over on the boat from Poland to Ellis Island. He said his older brothers and sisters were much older and they were always shooing him away. He had a good full life with two previous marriages, one son and two grandsons.

He was a professional musician for much of his life and a health problem deterred him from serving during WWII. After a failed first marriage he left his wife and young son and headed out west to Phoenix. As a head waiter he saved enough money to buy a home in La Jolla. He told us he brought his home with his tip money!

He was pretty happy with his second marriage which lasted 12 years. They enjoyed travelling, boating, and he lost his wife to leukemia the year that we moved to California in 1993. He was very instrumental in helping us choose a place to live in nearby Poway. Great school district and low crime!

He was a realtor for the last 30 years of his life and retired a few years ago. He enjoyed working out, cooking on his patio. He hated getting older and seeing his friends pass on one by one. He always said why am I the last one? Why do I have to see all my friends go?

I didn't know until recently that when his wife passed, she died in his arms in their bed. He knew his health was failing but he didn't want to go into a nursing home. I figured out that he wanted to die in his home too. We asked him to come and live with us but he didn't want to.

He loved jazz music and the big bands. He loved having visitors. He loved living in San Diego. He was not a perfect man. No one is perfect. But he had a plan for his life and that did not include getting old and having your health deteriorate. He hated that.

When we picked him up from the hospital that last time, he told me how much he loved my husband and I said he loves you too. He told the nursing staff, I don't know what I would do without these guys (meaning my husband and me).

I was filming all week in LA and was happy to be home on Saturday. I told my hubby we should go see Uncle Ted on Sunday. We both had a lazy morning and watched TV. Before we knew it, it was 5 pm and too late to visit. We called him earlier today to check in on him and his friend, Marie answered the phone.

She told us that Ted had taken a spill and had fallen. The next part is sketchy but some how she was notified that he had fallen. They took him to the hospital on Sunday. On Monday around 4 pm he passed. No one had called us. If we had not called him today, I don't know when we would have been notified.

We are both so shaken that this happened on Sunday and feel somehow that had we been there perhaps he would not have fallen. Everything is up in the air for now. I am saddened for us but I know he died where he wanted to die, at home. He is in a much better place now, that I know for sure. His heart and his kidneys were failing him.

After his release from the hospital, we brought him to our home to recover. He asked me if I thought he would get better. I told him no, I didn't think he was getting better. I told him his head nurse told us his two major organs were failing him and it was just a matter of time. I hope I did the right thing by telling him the truth. I held his hand as I told him and he looked like oh, okay. And then he wanted to go home. And yesterday he went home to our Lord.