My grandma was really sick. Not an old, mean, grouchy, uncomfortable grandma. My sweet, young, funny, sugareating diabetic, full-of-life grandma, the woman who helped my dear mom raise me. I can’t get over her finally
opening her eyes and looking at me. My heart was jumping out of my chest to go in hers. Stay alive! Stay awake! Don’t talk, you will hurt yourself. Don’t breathe too heavily, you’ll bring up your blood pressure. Everything was fragile. She saw me crying and not catching my breath. I thought I would need oxygen myself. She looked at me with the eyes of a mother caring for her daughter. She tried to calm me down by reaching her heavily wired hand out to comfort me. I thought that was what God was giving me… that moment. I just was fixated on the monitor and the facial expressions. Sometimes I would stare so long at the monitor that I would think something could change, and boom she is back!
My grandma has risen to the occasion. She is on the mend and is going to take her life more seriously. The taste of death is a taste we could do without. I was reflecting on why I love this woman so much during this time and so many memories flooded my brain.
Special thanks to Dr. Linda Keirstead and nurse Becky Malone for staying with my grandmother all night at the
clinic, and to the community, for all the heartfelt prayers.
Carolee Bass for the Marilyn Morris family