12:28 am
every night so far,
I’ve cried.
I know that it won’t do any good, but I can’t help it.
I miss my grandmother.
I’ve missed her ever since dementia took over her life back in 2004-ish.
It hurts.
Tonight was especially hard because when my mom and I arrived, she was running a 103 fever. I know the doctors say that her movements are involuntary, but she appeared to be writhing in distress. I tried to hold her hand and had to struggle to unclench her right fist. It ripped at my heart to see her like that and to feel partially responsible.
I don’t know what to believe anymore.
How do I know that she really isn’t in pain?
How do I know whether or not she hears me, smells me or can see me when I open her eye?
I stood there for only about an hour tonight, holding grandma’s hot, somewhat sticky hand. All morning, I battled phone calls between funeral directors and utility companies.
Am I betraying my faith in grandma’s ability to get better by already arranging for a funeral? Does she know that we are trying to figure out funeral arrangements; and is she begging us not to give up on her? I wish that there was some way to know the answers to my questions.
I want so badly to believe that she’s ok- that she wants to go to her final resting place where her memory is clear and she is free of any pain or medical problems.
Am I killing my grandmother by pulling her off of life support after a week? Or would I be drawing out a long, slow, painful death?
I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know.
And now, I find myself wondering who will be next to die.
I watched my mom drive to work and Kenny take his motorcycle today (Dad had already gone to work by the time I got up), and I actually found myself cringing. I came extremely close to telling Kenny not to ride his motorcycle.
Does God have our earthly departures pre-planned, and if so, why does He choose certain manners of death? Some of them seem so torturous. And with God in mind, is it then any business of ours to remove grandma from life support, or should she never have gone on it in the first place?
I have no one to talk to- everyone runs in the opposite direction, and I feel so alone in this. I want so badly to make the right decision for grandma, but I don’t know what she wants or would have wanted.
Please, God, help me through this. More importantly, I pray that you help my grandmother through this.
We come into this world drawing a deep breath to cry out our existence to others, and we depart with nothing more than a sigh the size of a whisper, leaving others around us in tears.
12:51 am