By Vic Gronek
This story is a follow up to my last article entitled “To truly believe”
This is my story of Jean Annabelle McLeod who passed away on June 13, 2925, earlier this summer at the age of 99 years. Jean was born Jean Annabelle Elliott on November 4th, 1925 in Port Huron, Michigan. In her early years and throughout her life, Jean was friends with my own mother Wanda Gronek (Maiden name Ellis) and needless to say they did many things together back in the day. They rode horses in the vicinity of what is now called Lighthouse park and Palmer park. They played tennis and did many other things together in the years prior to World War II.
As time went on around the time of 1946 and 1947 they each found their true loves, married and they were in each other’s wedding party. With a twist of fate, back on August 13th of 1973, Jean’s husband Douglas McLeod passed away at the young age of 52 years. Coincidentally my own father William Gronek passed away four days later on August 17,1973 at the young age of 55.
The friendship between Jean and my mom lasted all of their lives and only ended with the death of my own mom in September of 2019. Jean herself had just lost her only son Douglas Frank McLeod earlier in the year, on March 6, 2019 at the age of 70 years. It was about the time that my mother passed away that my wife Carol and I took a more active role visiting Jean and helping her if and when she needed something special. In a sense, she filled a void that my mother left when she passed.
At Jean’s request, we set up a system where she would call us around 8:30 in the morning just to let us know she was okay and we would call her around 6:30 PM to check on her. The only issue we had with this system pertained to Jeans hearing aids. When the hearing aids worked, all was fine, however, when the batteries were bad (and Jean was unaware that they were bad), numerous problems were encountered, as you can imagine.
There was one time about five years ago when Jean asked if I could fix a small leak on the roof of her sunporch. As luck would have it, the day arrived for me to patch the leak and wouldn’t you know, it was one of the hottest, steamiest days of the year. I should mention here that at times in my life, I have been plagued with a fear of heights. This fear has manifested itself at the worst of times over the course of my life. On this particular day, I set up the extension ladder, scampered up the ladder with all the athleticism I could muster, as well as my can of plastic roofing cement and putty knife and proceeded to patch the area that I suspected of leaking. Needless to say, I could not finish this chore quick enough as my shoes felt like they were melting on the hot roof. In any case, I finished with the patch job, tossed down the plastic roofing cement to my wife Carol along with the putty knife and proceeded toward the ladder to come down.
It was at this precise moment that my fear of heights once again reared its ugly head. I could NOT manage to get close enough to the ladder to descend from the roof of this porch. Although I tried several times to get to the ladder and swing my foot over the abyss, there was simply no way that I could do so. About this time Jean came outside to check on my progress, only to see that I was in a real pickle. Jean knew that this was going to take some time and would only get better with regard to the entertainment value. She then asked Carol if she could get a lawn chair for her to sit down to watch the events unfold. I remember telling both Carol and Jean that they might as well pop some popcorn and sell tickets.
Carol then asked if I wanted her to call 911….after some serious soul searching, I told her that yes, that was our only alternative. I did emphasize however that under no circumstance were they to have their sirens on. It only took a few minutes for the firefighters to arrive and I was elated that I would finally be getting off this hot roof. I remember telling them that I have never been so happy to hold a strange man’s hand in my life. While I would like to say that was the end of the story, it was not. Carol had my old flip phone and although she had never taken a photo with my flip phone before, she somehow managed to take photos of the firefighters rescuing me. For years afterward Jean laughed each and every time she accidentally came across one of these photos, (which she kept safely in her office).
Another time Jean’s one and only bathroom was really in need of a bit of a remodel. While most of the bathroom was okay, her tub and tub surround were simply horrible. As things worked out, Jean had to go to the hospital for a three day stay sometime in 2020. Carol and I then had the grand idea to use this time to remove and install a new tub surround in Jean’s bathroom. We then managed to get our young grandson Ryan to help us out with removing the old tub surround and drywall right down to the studs. We then proceeded to install some new greenboard, the new tub surround, some privacy film to go on the window and we somehow managed to complete all this, before she was discharged the following Monday. Here’s the kicker, Carol (unbeknownst to me), had told Jean that we had done this during her stay in the hospital. Jean then told Carol not to say anything but she was going to ask me to put it back when I showed her the remodel when she returned home.
In any case when I took her home from the hospital on Monday and showed her the surprise, she told me how nice it all looked, but she then looked me right in the eye and asked me if I could put it back the way she had it, no smile, no nothing and she sounded so serious. I paused a moment then told her NO in no uncertain terms, the old tub surround was in pieces and was going to the dump the next day, She laughed so hard knowing that I took the bait and she got the reaction she was expecting, she could hardly wait to call Carol and tell her that she GOT me.
One day I let Jean read an article I wrote in Grant Smith’s Blue Water Healthy Living online magazine “To Truly Believe”. This article pertained to what I considered a miracle back in my teenage years. I think that may have touched a nerve as she mentioned to me that she wants to talk about that. She then proceeded to tell me about the time she lost her only son, she stopped going to church and had questions about God. She did not elaborate and I was thinking that when she wanted to talk about it at a later date she would let me know.
There were so many times that Jean was having trouble with her health, she had a terrible bout with Squamous cell carcinoma on her right cheek that was really getting bad and so many times she would cry out, just let me die, why can’t I just die? Jean would say this more and more often as time went on, almost until the day she passed away.
In early May of this year, Jean experienced a fall on her back porch that ended up with her breaking her right clavicle (collarbone) and her right patella (kneecap), which required a four day stay in McLaren hospital followed up with a three week stay in Regency on the lake for rehab. Needless to say Jean wanted nothing to do with Regency, she just wanted to go home. Home however was out of the question for the time being as she needed more help than she could get at home, the home she had lived in for most of her 99 years. She needed occupational and physical therapy at Regency several times a week for three to five weeks.
Toward the end of the third week, Jean stopped eating and no longer wanted to participate in the rehab designed to get her back on her feet. I remember talking to the nursing staff and telling them that Carol and I were considering signing Jean up for an organization called Visiting Angels along with hospice and I asked in their opinion if this was the wisest path forward. They wholeheartedly said yes, if it was their mother, that is exactly what they would do. When we told Jean what we were going to do, she was ecstatic.
The next few days were a whirlwind of activity between starting visiting angels, blue water hospice, getting the hospital bed and other items that would be needed for Jeans’ last few days. While she did try eating a little it was too little too late. Jean’s health was failing and we knew it was just a matter of time before she would pass.
One of the things that happened shortly after Jean came home was when blue water hospice made arrangements with us to provide service with a chaplain. When the nurse from hospice asked Jean if she wanted the chaplain to stop by, she initially said no. At this point Carol overheard this and she went to Jean and asked her if she would do one thing for her, to please see the chaplain and just hear what he had to say. After thinking about this for just a moment, Jean said okay, she would see him. She then whispered to the visiting angel that she did not know why she agreed to this but the decision had been made and she would follow through with it.
As the events began to unfold, it was in the late afternoon that the visiting angels had a shift change and a young lady by the name of Cindy W happened to come on shift to work from 3:00 PM to 11:00 PM. In the process of getting to know Cindy, she mentioned that she sang in a choir. I then put Cindy on the spot and asked her if she would be willing to sing a song in accopella for us. To our pleasant surprise, she said yes and she proceeded to sing a song called Jesus build some fences around me, which we had never heard before. As Cindy was singing, Jean was listening to each and every word, smiling all the while. When Cindy finished, Jean, Carol and I all clapped our hands and said thank you.
About thirty minutes later the chaplain (Nathaniel Tucker) stopped by to get to know Jean and just talk. Someone told us that his friends call him Friar Tuck (one of the merry men from Robin Hood). As the minutes wore on, Nate asked Jean if she knew why Jesus died on the cross and Jean’s immediate response was “yes for all of us’. At this point Cindy, Carol and I were all getting pretty emotional, just hearing her say that.
Nathaniel then asked if Jean wanted to ask Jesus to come into her heart and forgive her for all her sins. To our amazement, she said yes. Needless to say Cindy, Carol and I were all wiping away tears. Jean then proceeded to ask Jesus to come into her life and to save her from her sins. This would be the most lucid and alert day that Jean would have before passing away nine days later. She had all or her mental faculties and was so very aware of what she was doing and saying along with the ramifications of her actions.
The tears were certainly flowing in Jean’s living room that night and there is absolutely no doubt that God was in Jean’s living room when these events began to unfold. This was such a moving and emotional moment that I cannot in simple words convey how we all felt that night. We each felt God’s presence in the room that night. Whenever I recounted those events with others that knew Jean, I would once again be transported to the living room and my voice would crack and I was once again overwhelmed with emotions all over again.
It will be so rewarding when we get to heaven to have Jean and other friends and family members greet us when our time comes and of that I am truly convinced.
