Journey to help my Father-in-law embrace living

We are preparing for our trip to America. We are leaving on Wednesday evening-- as in three days from now.
We'll be only in North Carolina this time. The focus of the trip is to visit with my father-in-law who just woke up from his 3 month coma. Nobody thought he'd wake up (he's 81 years old), and he is now lucid, communicating, and even joking! There are more details, but it's not important to know all the stuff with him. The bottom line is we are going. I think it's going to be a very important trip, and that the children will never forget the trip to see their grandfather for [quite possibly] the last time.

I won't be writing much until we are settled in there. I am getting into high gear to get things organized to go. It will be a 10 day trip.

My father-in-law... alone- a widower- for 3 1/2 years now. Those years have been strong, yet depressed. Illness hit this September. One medical trauma after another, errors by caregivers, many close calls. There have been the trips to be at his bedside by all his sons, international conference calls so they can make hard decisions together, and waiting... waiting while this beloved, frail, elderly man fights to survive.
Then came the Miracle that he did survive. The tubes are all out. He is in nursing care in a good facility. He talks, but remembers nothing since September. Thank Gd. His sons gently fill in some of the gaps for him.
We must always treat our elderly parents with all the honor they have earned themselves for giving us life and sustaining us. I think that this will be one of the most important ways to give our children this value- teach by action.

I *know* this is not the simplest thing I could be doing for myself, strictly physically speaking, that is. But life is here to be lived, and I lived in order to participate in it. I have a disability, and I am living with that, too.

In the choice between life and death, I choose life, with all it's colors and flavors. This trip is to live, and help my father-in-law want to live, also, after all that has happened.