After Richard urged Meredith to visit her father, Thatcher, during the Jan. 31 episode of Grey’s Anatomy, she finally found it in her heart to do so. Especially because he only had about a week to live, so Meredith swallowed her pride and cautiously made her way to Thatcher’s house, where they both reunited and spilled some major secrets. First, Thatcher told Meredith that he flew home to be with her upon hearing about Derek’s death. In fact, he said he was at Derek’s funeral, standing next to her “doctor friends”, but he didn’t approach her because he felt it would feel like it was “for him” and not her, so he refrained from doing so. Then, he said that he tried calling her multiple times after, but they never ended up connecting.
Later, when they were discussing how much they miss Lexie, Meredith revealed that she has another sister. Thatcher thought she was talking about his other daughter, Molly, but she corrected him and told him about Maggie. So that was the first time he ever found out that Richard and Ellis had a child together. But instead of getting upset, he said it was the “one good thing” that came from their romance. And Meredith seemed to agree.
Then, when Thatcher told Meredith that he wished he could have gotten to know her three children, she put her hands on his face and told him all about them. It was an emotional moment, and one that tragically ended with Thatcher dying in Meredith’s arms. It was bittersweet.
Meanwhile, Amelia and Koracick tackled a daunting surgery on Catherine, while Richard and Jackson hoped for the best. Catherine prepared for two very different outcomes — even going as far as to plan her afterparty if she woke up from her surgery — but everyone feared for the worse. Especially Jackson and Richard, who watched most of Catherine’s surgery from the gallery.
It was an intense few hours for Amelia and Tom in the operating room, but they kept each other motivated with some funky tunes and the occasional pep talk. Even so, they ran into a hiccup and only eliminated 95% of the cancer in Catherine’s body. So when she woke up from surgery, they were forced to tell her that she’ll need to undergo chemotherapy and get regular checkups to make sure the last tumor in her body doesn’t grow any larger. The doctors felt defeated, but Catherine reassured them that they saved her life — even though she still has a bit of cancer left in her body, she’ll now have several more years left to perform surgeries, hug her son, “make love” to her husband and help raise her granddaughter Harriet. Despite the tears in everyone’s eyes, for Catherine, the surgery was a success.
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