blogger mom

Last week we started to notice that my grandma was acting different...she was confused and disoriented...not processing things quickly. My mom took her to the doctor and he was hopeful that the problem was with her medication. He adjusted her blood pressure meds, but also scheduled an MRI to make sure there wasn't something else wrong. We found out yesterday that she has had a small stroke. I thought it might be best for Evan and I to go and have lunch with her today. When I left my heart felt like it was broken into a million little pieces. She introduced me as her niece to a friend, couldn't remember the names of my oldest two children, and forgot that we had ordered our lunch about 60 seconds after we ordered it. Conversation was difficult and she was so frustrated. The woman I spent almost three hours with today is not the same woman I talked to last week. This happened so quickly and my heart just hurts. I'm not ready for this again. Selfishly, I don't want to start grieving my grandmother. I don't want to gear up to go visit her and sit with her and look into those same sad and empty eyes that I saw in my grandfather. I know I may be borrowing trouble, she may have many happy years ahead of her. But something inside keeps telling me that it's time to get ready, that we all need to prepare ourselves for what may be ahead.

I could write for a book here about what this sweet woman means to me. When you grow up in the same town as your grandparents, you have a very special relationship with them. I'm her only granddaughter and her mind that has always meant I deserved some special privileges. I may never know what her prayers have protected me from, she is literally on her knees praying for my family every night. All I know to do right now is to love her in the midst of her confusion and sadness.