We had quite a few things happen in the couple of weeks before Christmas and they all kinda culminated on Christmas Eve.
Firstly, when we put our house on the market it was set to expire on Christmas Eve...we haven't had any contacts about the house for over 3 months and for my sanity I had decided we would let it expire and re-list in the spring when the market is better - - and I felt at peace and was able to not worry about it anymore. Well we had got a call a couple of weeks before Christmas from some people who were very interested but couldn't come up until the week between Christmas and New Years. Not a big deal, no one else had called on the house in months. Well, on Friday the 23rd we got a call from a realtor in Soda Springs who had clients that really wanted to come see it the next day, Christmas Eve. I had my party that night and then woke up and frantically made the kids help me get the house 'showing ready'. We were set leave at 11:00 when the realtor was showing up with the people to show the house. While getting the house finished up I got a text from Brandi Turner, her dad owns Sam's market and has a gentleman come in saying he was trying to deliver pie to LeGrand's Dad and he was concerned because he wasn't opening the door. She just said to have someone check on him and that he might have left the pies at the store. I called LeGrand and told him to just call his Dad and as soon as we could get out of the house we would go check on him. When we finally left the house I called LeGrand (he was working the weekend) he said he hadn't had time to call his dad. I went to the store and talked to Brent who said the man hadn't left the pies but had said he would wait in front of the house. I went directly to LeGrands parents house and the man was in his car with an officer at his window, I pulled up and asked if they had gotten Ed to come to the door and if everything was okay. The officer looked in the window and saw all the kids in the car and then asked me if he could speak to me alone...immediately I knew something was bad, I warned the kids that maybe Opa had passed. I parked the car on the side of the house and went and asked the officer if he had passed - he said I'm sorry mam but he is gone. The face of the man in the car will forever be seared in my memory, his lip quivered and he had tears in his eyes. Come to find out he was a friend of Ed who worked in the pocatello temple with him and had made him some homemade pies and came clear from Pocky to bring them to him on Christmas Eve. I felt so bad he had to be the one to call the cop and first discover Ed had passed. I immediately called LeGrand who came striaght from work --I made calls to all of the family, it was quite the whirlwind. It was so crazy as he was just at our house party the night before, he hadn't been feeling good that week and had been to the doctor and found out that he was having some Afib problems along with early signs of Liver and Kidney failer - - they figure he had a heart attack. He was found sitting in his rocking chair with the TV on.
In the meantime I'm getting messages from the real estate agent about the house...it was all crazy. In the end, the people who were looking at the house the exact moment I discovered Ed had passed made and offer and are under contract to buy our home. We knew right away, we couldn't leave Grace and leave Ed here alone...to have Nancy pass in September and Ed pass 100 days later, it's crazy to see how this all transpired and impossible to not see the Lords hand in all of this.
We didn't want our Christmas Eve wasted so we went to Pocky and met up with the Balls for Chinese food - when they found out we share the same tradition they had invited both us and Ed to join them. We then covered the vending machine at the hospital waiting room in bills and change for our small act of service.
