“All we wanted was for him to meet her, and he did,” new mom Joy Caitlyn Phero said.
A great-grandfather had the chance to meet the newest member of the family days before his death, thanks to kind hospital staff.
73-year-old Charles “Buck” Marshall, better known as “pop pop,” was hospitalized for complications from pancreatic cancer on the seventh floor of Virtua Voorhees Hospital in New Jersey.
In a stroke of luck, his granddaughter Joy Caitlyn Phero, 20, gave birth to his first great-granddaughter, Chloe May Kubat, just four floors below earlier this month.
Since Marshall was in no condition to visit the newborn, nurses transported Phero and Chloe on a wheelchair to the great-grandfather’s bedside.
“My pop pop Buck feared since the day I got pregnant with Chloe that he wouldn’t be able to meet her, and I feared that more than anything because of what an impact he has made on my life,” Phero told InsideEdition.com. “This [meeting] was all my pop pop wanted. He kept telling me this day how his life is complete now, and he couldn’t stop thanking me."
Phero explained that she was raised by her grandparents, and have always looked up to her pop pop, who passed away Monday morning.
“He taught me how to be strong and how to keep my chin held high in the toughest of situations," she said. “My pop pop always knew how to make us laugh with his amazing sense of humor.”
Her admiration of her grandfather only grew when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
“I looked up to him especially in his time of sickness," she said. "I couldn’t ever possibly understand how someone could be so strong."
Phero said when she and her boyfriend Tony Kubat were expecting a baby, she wished her pop pop could be in the child's life, and is now looking forward to passing down stories.
"All we wanted was for him to meet her, and he did," she said.
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