Update

Events have made my course clear.

First, Katherine does not need surgery. She is, in her mother's words, "in the arms of Morpheus," groggy day and night from her pain medication.

Her mother, Gail ("Gigi," to our common grandchildren), who lives 5 minutes from Katherine and Mark, has canceled her trip to Florida, and will stay here to care for Katherine and the little ones. Mark's regular day off is tomorrow, so he will be home all day to give Gail a break, and my daughter, Erin, has offered to help with the children, as well.  (She lives 15 minutes away.)

So I'm going home tomorrow morning. Vada's funeral is Thursday; I don't yet know what time.

It turns out that the early information about her death was incorrect. She did not fall. She lost control of her car while pulling into her driveway and smashed into a neighbor's tree. We do not know whether the crash killed her or whether she died first (from, for example, a heart attack or stroke) and then crashed. Perhaps she put her foot on the accelerator when she meant to put in on the brake; nobody knows. It does appear that her neck was broken, although there was no autopsy to confirm that.

She was pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital.

We will miss her very much.