Talk about disastrous holidays. Oh Boy what a New Year's it's been. Our
granddaughter's father was supposed to pick them up the day before Christmas
& bring them back here Christmas Eve (Santa Claus comes here in Coventry)
but the dad didn't show. No one could get in touch with him; he didn't
answer his cell. Then we had them last weekend because we don't go out for
New Year's (I'm lucky to make it till 10:00) & Missy, their mom, wanted to
go out for the 1st time in 15 years. The next morning we got a call from a
friend of their father (Doug) who was concerned because they couldn't
contact him either. Well, the friend found Doug, the dad, in his house in
Delroy (middle Ohio) dead with a gunshot thru the heart. He's threatened
many times in the past & came close a few times, but this time he really did
it. The girls are a mess, Missy's a mess & so are Paul & I. Calling hours
are today. HOW can someone shoot themself in the heart with a 22?! We're
still not entirely convinced it was a suicide but that's what the hobunk
cops down there said happened. The girls are going to grief counseling, free
of charge thanks to their school district but everybody's blaming themselves
even tho Doug abandoned them in the spring for another woman & has had 4
more since then. But at least, the attorneys & cops down there now know that
we weren't making it up when we said Doug needed to be evaluated & Ellie &
Chloe needed supervised visitation. Statistics show that if someone is that
f**d up, they often take out their family before they do themselves in. He
was supposed to have them that weekend & thank God he had enough sense not
to pick them up. When he didn't show, the girls were hysterical, crying for
him but we just thought he was being his normal irresponsible self. Well, I
guess in a way he was. He was in the house, dead, for at least a week but
we'll probably never know for sure how long he laid there before he died or
if it was a suicide or homicide. There are so many things running around my
head; I'll never be able to make the same cookies we made that day because
it'll remind them, let alone just the holiday season in general. Those poor
poor girls.
Candi