Mom passed away on Thursday, April 21, 2005. The official time of death on the death certificate is 10:20 a.m., but Dad thinks she actually died in the apartment at 9:45 a.m. when they were trying to take her to dialysis by way of an ambulance. Mom had suffered several broken vertebrae as the dialysis and renal diet takes a lot of calcium away from your body. By the end of the previous week she was unable to get in and out of the new car and was using the ambulance to take her to the dialysis center.
She called me on Saturday, that first day she started this new process, and I could tell she was scared. She wanted me to know what was going on and that she loved me. I could tell she was afraid as she told me “I don’t know what’s going to happen” and that just wasn’t like mom to say. She was normally so full of positive thoughts and was not her normal optimistic self. Her voice was shaky and unsettled. She had the ambulance take her that Saturday and the following Tuesday without much incident.
Thursday morning she called me to let me know she had spoken to Shari and James the night before. Her voice was strong and she told me about their conversations and that she was getting ready for dialysis. She probably got off the phone with me about 9:25 a.m. as she said she had to finish getting ready for the ambulance. Once the EMTs got there, she was put on the stretcher and when they laid her down she couldn’t get her breath. They brought her back up and down trying to help her get comfortable. Dad said he thought he heard a noise and mom wasn’t there anymore. The life went out of her, they yelled at her and she couldn’t/didn’t respond. Her body went limp and they worked on her all the way to the hospital, but it was too late.
Dad and I believe she may have had more vertebrae snap during the jostling on the stretcher, possibly even severing her spinal cord. Her body and her heart couldn’t take the pain anymore and shut down. Dad doesn’t think she felt any pain as it happened so fast. In an instant she was gone from this world and on to her heavenly home.
Articles from January 2015
Childhood
Melody Lou Martin was born on December 26th, 1946 in West Palm Beach, Florida to David and Betty Martin. She was a much-loved child and ultimately the only child that Betty would ever have. Betty was also an only child and so Melody did not have a lot of extended family. Later in life this led Melody to long for a large family of her own. Although she was born in Florida, Melody grew up in Buckeye Lake, Ohio, in a little cottage not to far from the water. Buckeye Lake was the home of the Buckeye Lake Amusement Park and that park was an integral part of Melody’s childhood. Melody was a happy child and very outgoing. She had many talents and participated in a variety of activities in her youth, everything from Garden Club to playing the flute.
As Melody grew, so did her love for the outdoors. Her favorite things were flowers, but she also had quite an affinity for rocks, especially geods, and other wonders of nature.
She was the apple of her mom’s eye and as the only child was doted on and spoiled with all the love a child could have. She was especially close to her grandfather, ‘Poppy Jim’ as he was called, who although he wasn’t her biological grandparent, never treated her as such. He had a great influence in her life for many years because of that example of unconditional love.
As a child, she always lamented being born the day after Christmas, and in the winter in general, as she couldn’t really have all the fun outdoor birthday parties that her friends had. Her birthday also often got lumped in with Christmas. One year she held special in her heart was when her family decided to throw her have a birthday party in the summer. That birthday definitely became one of those stories that she regaled to her own children in her adult years.
Melody’s parents eventually split up and she was left living with her mom and her grandparents and saw little of her father. Eventually he would drift out of her life completely. Life moved on and Melody thrived with a busy social schedule and increasing responsibilities as she got older. In addition to the Garden Club and learning the flute she also took up the baton and helped out her grandparents business at the Buckeye Lake Amusement Park. Her family ran games like the balloon dart game and the penny pitch. Again these experiences were the things she told her children and grandchildren about for years to come.
As an outgoing people-person, helping out didn’t often feel like a job at all, but an enjoyable part of every-day life.
Eventually Melody got a job working at the skating rink that was a part of the amusement park. She loved to roller skate and this job was right up her alley. With the park within a short walking distance, this new responsibility was a perfect fit. She loved this time in her life so much and held on to her jacket from the skating rink job and it still exists in the family to this day. It is a cherished piece of memorabilia of her life as well as several outfits from her majorette days.
As she got older, other family responsibilities expanded for her as well and unfortunately this wasn’t just the normal teenage chores. Family problems eventually led her to be a chauffeur of sorts once she got her license and she was often pulled out of school for various tasks for the family. She was eventually pulled out of school so much that she didn’t have enough credits to graduate with her class her senior year and never achieved the high school diploma she spent her youth working towards.
Early Adulthood
Melody fell in love and married Gary Lee Grigsby. Gary enlisted with the Marine Corps and Melody moved with Gary to California where he got stationed at Camp Pendleton. Melody became pregnant with her first child in the fall of 1967. That child, a daughter, was born in July of the following year after a very difficult pregnancy where at one point the nurses were unsure if her and/or her daughter would survive.
A little over a year later Melody gave birth to her second child, a boy, after a normal pregnancy. As with all families in the military, the family was without the father part of the time and Melody was a strong woman dealing with doing everything at home when needed without the aid of family. The other military wives became her surrogate family.
After coming back from a combat zone, Gary was never the same and their marriage would eventually fall apart. Melody moved herself and her 2 young children back to Buckeye Lake, Ohio to be close to her family and to find a fresh start. Melody settled back into life in Ohio and her old stomping grounds, reconnecting with family and friends. Melody even joined a Christian singles club and on May 26th, 1974 she met William Sherman Hardwick Sr. at one of their events. He saw her from across the room and asked her to dance. Bill was also divorced and had 3 children from a previous marriage, ranging in age from 10 to 13.
Bill and Melody had a fast and furious courtship and before they knew it they were talking about making a life together. Melody had always wanted a big family so she was up for the challenge.
Less than three months after they met on the dance floor of a Christian single’s club event, Bill and Melody were saying their “‘I do’s”. Melody’s children, now ages 5 and 6, served as the flower girl and the ring bearer in a small, mostly family, ceremony. At this point, only Melody’s children were living with the newlyweds, but that would all change one night when Bill’s ex-wife, who had primary physical custody of their three children, would show up on their doorstep one night and ask Bill and Melody to take the children. Melody opened her heart and her home to this new family unit, her very own version of the tv show, The Brady Bunch.
Blending two families together isn’t always the easiest thing, and it certainly presented a unique set of challenges with such a large family, but together Bill and Melody navigated these uncharted waters.
Life was busy raising a newly created family of 5 kids, 3 boys and 2 girls, but that didn’t stop Bill and Melody from wanting their own child as well. It wasn’t long before they found out that their family of 5 would expand yet again to include a new child of their very own.
In the summer of 1975, Bill and Melody welcomed a little girl into the world, rounding out their family to three boys and three girls, ranging in age from newborn to 15. As their family expanded it seemed like their living quarters shrunk so they had several moves in their first few years of marriage. Eventually they rented a mobile home in the country. Their landlord owned several mobile homes and a house on the property that he rented out and he was looking for someone to help manage his properties. This opportunity seemed to be a great fit for them and appeared to be an easy enough responsibility, but the stories they could tell you would make your hair stand up on end! There certainly was nothing boring about their new life in the country!
Middle Life
As the older children grew up and began their adult journey through life, Bill and Melody’s home life shifted. An opportunity arose to purchase a different home from friends who were moving out of state. With less children in the house and the responsibility of being rental managers gone, there was less chaos and more space.
At this point, Melody helped supplement the family income by babysitting and eventually running a small daycare out of the family home. Even with less children at home, money was still tight and she used her extra time to help contribute to the household finances. She never really took on more than a family or two at a time, but the income helped afford incidentals and sometimes little extras.
She enjoyed many hobbies and most of them involved crafting or gardening. She loved to share these hobbies with her children. The kitchen table was often filled with ceramic projects or starter flower pots and the kids got their hands just as messy as Melody’s were. She loved to sing and enjoyed music, especially church music and the 50’s and 60’s music she grew up on. She instilled a passion for music in her daughters as well and they often sang specials in church and were members of church musicals or the children’s choir.
As Melody’s two older children entered their teenage years, her grandmother invited them down to Florida for the summer. By this time her mom, step-father and grandmother were all living in Okechobee, Florida, and sadly she had lost her grandfather who had played such a pivotal role in her early life. Bill and Melody allowed the children to go for the summer only for things to go horribly awry and be betrayed by those whom she loved when they went to a lawyer to obtain custody of her children. She wanted to fight it, but with little financial resources to even try to sneak down to Florida to pick up her children let alone hire a lawyer for a court battle, she finally acquiesced to her elders’ wishes and let the children be adopted by her mom and step-father. This was a tumultuous time in Melody’s life and something she never quite got over.
As time passed, Melody’s oldest children eventually moved back home to Ohio once or twice but moved back to Florida as they got out on their own and started their lives. Ultimately the daughter moved back to Ohio to settle down, but the son chose to create his adult life in Florida. Almost all of the children at one point or another moved back in with Melody and Bill, even if only for a short period of time to reestablish themselves.
Life continued and the glass plant that Bill worked at closed down, but luckily his seniority at the company allowed him to get a job at another plant. Unfortunately, it was not the same job and definitely not for the same pay so they packed up and moved to Lancaster to shorten Bill’s commute and cut down on expenses. They found a small rental house that was 1/2 of a duplex. It was only a small 2 bedroom, but with the youngest child the only one left at home, it was just big enough.
They continued to live in town for 2 years until the desire to move back out into the country led them to rent a house off a nice couple that also lived on the property. They would all become friends and the husband helped Bill out a lot with his cars when needed, which turned out to be a lot as by this time Bill had taken up a paper route job delivering papers in the country that really beat up the cars. However this job allowed the family to live a bit more comfortably. This new rental house also had a large yard and gave Melody the ability to have a large flower garden as well as a large vegetable garden. Although they were able to have a small garden when they lived in town, gardening was something she had greatly missed since she had to give up the green house she had at the property they lost when Bill was in essence down-sized at his job. They could also have pets again, which was another thing they had missed while living in town.
Empty Nest
Bill and Melody’s youngest child graduated high school in the spring of 1993 and went off to college. By the summer of 1994, she was getting married and moving out of state, so the 3 bedroom house they were renting was suddenly empty and too big for their needs. Bill had also taken early retirement from the glass factory and it seemed time to downsize their lives.
They found a new place to rent that was on the paper route that they were still doing for extra money. The new place was a one bedroom house with a finished attic that could serve as a small spare bedroom when family came into town. The new rental house still had a decent sized yard but was heated with a wood burning stove, which meant Bill had to split a lot of wood and they had to store it up for the winter. They lived here comfortably for a couple of years before their youngest and her husband decided to move back up to Ohio in March of 1997 from North Carolina to be closer to family. They moved in with Bill and Melody temporarily and put most of their belongings in storage until they could find a place to rent. It was cramped quarters but it was great being able to reconnect and spend a lot of time together.
Melody was unhappy with their landlords at this point and was looking to move. They decided that they would all try to find one house to rent that they could share and split the rent. This would save Bill and Melody some money and allow their daughter and son-in-law to start saving for a down payment on a house. By August they were moving back into town in a older house directly across from the fairgrounds. This became an advantage at times when going to events, but parking was often a problem. The house had a small yard but Melody still found ways to plant flowers and enjoy her hobbies. In fact she started a small crafting group at her church during this time and they would spend time once or twice a month getting together and making things to give away to their families or learning new crafts from one another. The smaller yard meant less time doing yard work though and a house on traditional heating meant Bill no longer had to split wood all the time.
This was a fun time in her life spending time in the evenings often playing games together as a family and getting to know her new son-in-law on a deeper level. There was a lot of laughter in the house.
During this time Melody and Bill also celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. Unbeknownst to Melody, Bill and their daughter and son-in-law had cooked up a plan to surprise Melody to mark the occasion. That Sunday morning Bill had arranged for a surprise vow renewal ceremony at their church and there was an anniversary party planned for later that day. Melody and Bill and all of their family and friends celebrated, played games and danced to the music Melody and Bill grew up on.
Church Life
No matter where they lived, it was always very important to Melody to find a church for her family to attend. They would visit different churches until they found the one that they felt God calling them to attend and often they would go to one where they knew someone from a previous church they attended. With money tight, moving frequently meant finding a new church more often than not as traveling very far was cost prohibitive.
Melody had a passion for Christ and for teaching children about the path to salvation and how to have a relationship with God. She taught a class in children’s church at every church she ever belonged to and at some of them her class was the WHOLE children’s church! Bill and Melody would often volunteer for various church committees and helped out on the church bus. They had been active leaders in Boy Scouts and had a desire to help teach and mold youth, reaching out to help in any way that they could.
She touched the hearts and souls of hundreds of children over the years and loved to watch them grow up, discover their faith and find themselves. Vacation Bible School had to be one of the highlights of her year, often teaching craft classes or any other place she was needed.
For the last five to six years of her life she taught the 3-5 year old Sunday School class at her church. This definitely was not the easiest class to teach, but she loved it and built special bonds with many of the children in her class. She was very creative and came up with new ways to teach traditional concepts and values to little ones who had short attention spans and immature thought processes.
She taught the children that they could do things they never thought they could do and that God would always be there to help you, love you and forgive you when you make a mistake. She taught them to be kind and to treat others the way they would want to be treated. And she enjoyed every minute of it.
Melody had a passion for Christ and for teaching children about the path to salvation and how to have a relationship with God. She taught a class in children’s church at every church she ever belonged to and at some of them her class was the WHOLE children’s church! Bill and Melody would often volunteer for various church committees and helped out on the church bus. They had been active leaders in Boy Scouts and had a desire to help teach and mold youth, reaching out to help in any way that they could.
She touched the hearts and souls of hundreds of children over the years and loved to watch them grow up, discover their faith and find themselves. Vacation Bible School had to be one of the highlights of her year, often teaching craft classes or any other place she was needed.
For the last five to six years of her life she taught the 3-5 year old Sunday School class at her church. This definitely was not the easiest class to teach, but she loved it and built special bonds with many of the children in her class. She was very creative and came up with new ways to teach traditional concepts and values to little ones who had short attention spans and immature thought processes.
She taught the children that they could do things they never thought they could do and that God would always be there to help you, love you and forgive you when you make a mistake. She taught them to be kind and to treat others the way they would want to be treated. And she enjoyed every minute of it.
Final Years
In the summer of 2000, Melody had a severe health crisis. She was having trouble walking, was out of breath with little exertion and the family was worried. She finally went to the doctor when the symptoms got worse and tests revealed she had a recent heart attack.
After going to the hospital for a heart catheterization, Melody underwent triple-bypass surgery to fix the problems with her heart. The surgery did not go well and she had to be revived on the table. When she did come out of surgery, her kidneys failed to restart properly and were not functioning as they should. After several days, function returned but damage was done and they were no longer functioning at normal levels.
Recovery was long and hard.
She was no longer able to go up and down stairs easily, so a friend at church loaned her an adjustable bed and the family then turned the dining room into a bedroom as all the bedrooms were on the second floor. Although she eventually regained some of her strength, her body was never the same.
In December of 2000, Bill and Melody rented an apartment in Somerset, Ohio at a retired and disabled facility. A small apartment meant she would have to get rid of a lot of things she had collected over the years, but the facility was only one floor and would make things easier for her. Their daughter and son-in-law had saved money to buy a house by this time and would be moving soon anyway so the time had come to split back apart.
This new place would be the last place she ever lived in her life and although it was small, it was comfortable.
She took great pride in decorating their new place, picking out new furniture and finding ways to make the small space work. They got to know other people who lived in the building well and would spend time playing cards with others in the evenings and participating in group activities. Melody even had a chance to reconnect with someone she went to high school with while living there.
At this point in her life she enjoyed the simple things in life, like spending time with her children and grandchildren and exploring new hobbies. Her crafting had expanded to oil painting and jewelry making. In the last year of her life, the problem with her kidneys reared its ugly head. Their level of function kept going down and down due to the damage that happened during the by-pass surgery. Eventually she knew she would have to go on kidney dialysis. A shunt was put in her chest and she started going to the kidney dialysis center 2 to 3 times per week. This was something she didn’t really like doing, but doing dialysis at home just wasn’t a good option to her.
It was a scary thing but they got into a routine and this became the new normal in their lives.
Around this time, Bill and Melody came into some money from a car accident settlement. This allowed them to pick out a newer car, one that wasn’t beat up from the hundred mile paper route each day. Melody fell in love with PT Cruisers, but didn’t really know if the settlement would be enough to purchase one.
She was delighted when the final figures came in and not only did they find one in their price range that was a slightly used, one-owner vehicle, but that there would be money left over! Melody felt blessed that God would give her this desire of her heart.
With the money that was left over she could pursue the other new passion in her life — jewelry making! Jewelry making is not exactly a cheap hobby and when she first got interested in it she really didn’t think they would have the money for her to fully pursue this new hobby. But indeed the Lord did provide. She found a company she liked and spent hours going through their catalog to figure out what she wanted to order and what she wanted her first projects to be. She ordered all sorts of beads and tools and started making a list of things she wanted to make for family for Christmas. Her excitement was obvious to anyone who talked to her about her new hobby.
As happy as she was, Melody started to worry. She worried that something was going to happen to her now that she had gotten the desires of her heart. It wasn’t that she thought she was cursed or something, it was simply family history. See her grandfather had passed away after he was finally able to retire and get some of the things he had wanted. Although she tried not to give this family history too much credence, it was something that continued to percolate in the back of her mind.
About 2-3 months after she started the dialysis treatment, Melody experienced something in her back while performing a routine task…changing the sheets on the bed. As she bent over she thought she heard something snap. In the following weeks this would not be the only “snap” that she would experience. She learned that some of her vertebrae were cracking and breaking. The dialysis was robbing her body of much needed nutrients for strong bones and the supplement that she was on prior to dialysis she could no longer take.
As plans were made on how to deal with this new complication, Melody kept the faith that they would be able to fix the problem. She even had a new-found confidence that things would be fine and pushed the idea of any correlation between her situation and what happened to her grandfather out of her mind as they had the car for almost 6 weeks and nothing had happened to her. As her back continued to get worse she could no longer get in and out of the new car easily and she began to be taken to the dialysis center in a ambulance transport. She once again became frightened by how quickly her body was deteriorating. About a week and a half into this new routine she began to have trouble breathing while being prepared for transport. When the transport personnel tried to help her sit up and breathe, her body gave out and she passed away before they could get her to the hospital.
She was no longer able to go up and down stairs easily, so a friend at church loaned her an adjustable bed and the family then turned the dining room into a bedroom as all the bedrooms were on the second floor. Although she eventually regained some of her strength, her body was never the same.
In December of 2000, Bill and Melody rented an apartment in Somerset, Ohio at a retired and disabled facility. A small apartment meant she would have to get rid of a lot of things she had collected over the years, but the facility was only one floor and would make things easier for her. Their daughter and son-in-law had saved money to buy a house by this time and would be moving soon anyway so the time had come to split back apart.
This new place would be the last place she ever lived in her life and although it was small, it was comfortable. She took great pride in decorating their new place, picking out new furniture and finding ways to make the small space work. They got to know other people who lived in the building well and would spend time playing cards with others in the evenings and participating in group activities. Melody even had a chance to reconnect with someone she went to high school with while living there.
At this point in her life she enjoyed the simple things in life, like spending time with her children and grandchildren and exploring new hobbies. Her crafting had expanded to oil painting and jewelry making. In the last year of her life, the problem with her kidneys reared its ugly head. Their level of function kept going down and down due to the damage that happened during the by-pass surgery. Eventually she knew she would have to go on kidney dialysis. A shunt was put in her chest and she started going to the kidney dialysis center 2 to 3 times per week. This was something she didn’t really like doing, but doing dialysis at home just wasn’t a good option to her.
It was a scary thing but they got into a routine and this became the new normal in their lives.
Around this time, Bill and Melody came into some money from a car accident settlement. This allowed them to pick out a newer car, one that wasn’t beat up from the hundred mile paper route each day. Melody fell in love with PT Cruisers, but didn’t really know if the settlement would be enough to purchase one.
She was delighted when the final figures came in and not only did they find one in their price range that was a slightly used, one-owner vehicle, but that there would be money left over! Melody felt blessed that God would give her this desire of her heart. With the money that was left over she could pursue the other new passion in her life — jewelry making! Jewelry making is not exactly a cheap hobby and when she first got interested in it she really didn’t think they would have the money for her to fully pursue this new hobby. But indeed the Lord did provide. She found a company she liked and spent hours going through their catalog to figure out what she wanted to order and what she wanted her first projects to be. She ordered all sorts of beads and tools and started making a list of things she wanted to make for family for Christmas. Her excitement was obvious to anyone who talked to her about her new hobby.
As happy as she was, Melody started to worry. She worried that something was going to happen to her now that she had gotten the desires of her heart. It wasn’t that she thought she was cursed or something, it was simply family history. See her grandfather had passed away after he was finally able to retire and get some of the things he had wanted. Although she tried not to give this family history too much credence, it was something that continued to percolate in the back of her mind.
About 2-3 months after she started the dialysis treatment, Melody experienced something in her back while performing a routine task…changing the sheets on the bed. As she bent over she thought she heard something snap. In the following weeks this would not be the only “snap” that she would experience. She learned that some of her vertebrae were cracking and breaking. The dialysis was robbing her body of much needed nutrients for strong bones and the supplement that she was on prior to dialysis she could no longer take.
As plans were made on how to deal with this new complication, Melody kept the faith that they would be able to fix the problem. She even had a new-found confidence that things would be fine and pushed the idea of any correlation between her situation and what happened to her grandfather out of her mind as they had the car for almost 6 weeks and nothing had happened to her. As her back continued to get worse she could no longer get in and out of the new car easily and she began to be taken to the dialysis center in a ambulance transport. She once again became frightened by how quickly her body was deteriorating. About a week and a half into this new routine she began to have trouble breathing while being prepared for transport. When the transport personnel tried to help her sit up and breathe, her body gave out and she passed away before they could get her to the hospital.
Family Aftermath
Melody’s family and friends were devastated. Although her health had taken on the new complication of the bone issue, no one expected that she would be gone so fast. She had just talked to her youngest child 20 minutes prior to passing away and her voice had been strong and steady. She had even been a bit feisty about a situation in the family and gave no indication that she was was about to have a major health crisis that would result in her death.
The funeral was held on a Monday afternoon, but you would never know it by the amount of people who showed up to pay their respects. So many people came to the funeral that they couldn’t fit them all in the main room and many others who couldn’t make it sent their regards. The family shared memories, pictures and what she meant to them. People were there whose lives she touched and many cards were received from friends, both new and old. Melody touched all of us who knew her with her generous spirit, her creativity, her love and her guidance. She overcame many things in her life and still looked for the joy in the little things. She had a zest for life and spread her joy to all those who came into her presence. She will always be missed.
The funeral was held on a Monday afternoon, but you would never know it by the amount of people who showed up to pay their respects. So many people came to the funeral that they couldn’t fit them all in the main room and many others who couldn’t make it sent their regards. The family shared memories, pictures and what she meant to them. People were there whose lives she touched and many cards were received from friends, both new and old. Melody touched all of us who knew her with her generous spirit, her creativity, her love and her guidance. She overcame many things in her life and still looked for the joy in the little things. She had a zest for life and spread her joy to all those who came into her presence. She will always be missed.
