A Visit

Today I went to church for Core and skipped the main service afterwards. I went to visit a woman in the nursing home that I consider to be my Grandmother. When I was younger, she babysat my brother and I for a number of years. She was always in excellent health; she still hasn't gotten any gray hair. She has reached an age of 80 years, and today I went to visit her.

I love her so very much.

As I walked into the room she was asleep. I entered slowly and sat down next to her and said hello and woke her up. I grabbed her hand and held it for the entire visit. We had a short conversation, but it was a very difficult one. She was hard to understand and was only able to mumble. I don't really remember much of what we talked about. I remember asking her if she had had any company recently, and I remember apologizing that I hadn't been to visit her more often. I think it's been a month since I have seen her. She was very healthy last time I saw her; as healthy as is possible when one sits in a chair all day and seldom moves, but she was coherant. She was understandable and very friendly.

Oh how things can change in a month.

As I talked to her I couldn't help but begin to cry. Oh how I love her. I get so busy and can sometimes forget about her when my schedule is least kind to me. But I really love her. I tried to hide the tears; it wasn't too difficult because she kept falling asleep. I continued to hold her hand, and let go only for a minute to go blow my nose and wipe my eyes.

I just wiped my eyes again.

I came back and sat down again beside her. I think we might have had a little more conversation, but I really don't remember. I held her hand for a number of minutes as she faded in and out of consciousness. I knew that nothing could better communicate my love for her than to hold her hand. Yet I couldn't resist the urge to cry. Tears kept coming and coming. She's the closest person that I've ever had to me in such a condition as this. I wasn't even this close to my grandfather, who recently died. I can't imagine what it would be like to lose her. Yet I fear that I'm going to very soon. I think that she has given up her will to live. Every time I visit with her she says that she's getting ready to die. She doesn't seem like she wanted to give up the will to live though. It seems as if it's happening out of frustration. I hate that. That makes me so frustrated.

I think she might have had a stroke. I don't know when it happened, but all the signs exist. I was afraid when I left that she was having the stroke as I sat there and talked with her, but I can't really be sure I guess. I called the nursing home up after I got home and voiced my concerns, and they said that they would go check on her. I haven't heard anything more since. I guess the thing that is most frustrating to me is that I think that she could be better if she were in a better nursing home. She's had a stroke once before, and after the stroke she recovered very nicely. She was in a similar state to the one that she is in now immediately after the stroke, yet the nursing home that she was in kept her active and made sure that she got the proper treatment. I feel like this one is just letting her sit there and not making her get around. I feel that if she hadn't been sitting on her chair all this time that she would have been more active and would thus be in better shape. But she's been allowed to sit in her chair and grow weaker and weaker, and now she's to the point that I don't think she can recover from it. maybe if she had been made to do something before things would have been different. But she wasn't, and now she's in a state that I don't think she can recover from.

When asked yesterday by the nurse that I called today on the phone if she would like to go to the hospital, she said no, and implied that she was giving up. The nursing home lady said that she thought that it might have been typical holiday depression. But I think it's more than that. I think she has given up altogether. And that is so frustrating to me. It's one thing to decide that you're ready to die, that you have accomplished your life's purpose. It's quite another to say, "I'm fed up with it! I'm too frustrated with all these difficulties that are being presented me! I just want to end it all!" If she must die, I want her to die happy and in comfort! Why must it be this way?

I love her so much.