Family... it's about ... time.
Today, my parents flew in to visit with my brother and sister and I and our families.
And it has been fun...
We had a big dinner at our house... after food, the kids all went downstairs to play and the adults sat around chatting and laughing.
As I listened to my dad tell a story he's told me 243million times, my mind began to wander.
I could hear the giggling and squealing of the kids downstairs, and then my mind instantly flashed back to the adult table, when all the adults broke out in laughter. I revelled in the feelings of happiness. Contentment.
THIS is what family means to me.
We reminisced about things my brother and I do when we're together and laughed about things I'd forgotten we'd done just after he'd married his wife....
Then we talked about my Grandparents, who are flying in tonight.
My grandmother is suffering from alzheimers.
She began to show signs over a year ago, probably longer.
And now she's beginning to forget more momentous things.
She'd forgotten that her sister had kids. (These 'kids' are older than my parents.)
She'd forgotten how to get home once.
And then tonight, after I spoke with my aunt and uncle after they'd gotten them on their flight...
She'd forgotten she had greatgrandkids , much less grandkids , herself.
She didn't recognize her own purse, coat and carryon on the conveyer belt before getting on the plane.
She asked my uncle several times who she was going to see.
My grandfather, I think, is just tired.
He's never been the 'warm/fuzzy' type, but I think he's just exhausted of the entire process.
My favorite aunt and uncle live in the same town as the GrandParents, and try to help them out the best they can. But over the past year 1/2, as things have deteriorated, I could hear the worry.
Tonight.. the information hurt worse.
And I began to really feel sadness.
My grandmother and I share a different relationship than all my other siblings do with her.... most of it I attribute to being the oldest child of her oldest child.
She let me live with her & my grandfather when my family went back to Germany, and I was in college and missing them.
While my mother trained me and set a great example for me... and no one could replace that...
My grandmother gave me something different....but equally as important.
She spoke to me as an adult.
She bore her testimony, often.
She laughed often.
She wasn't afraid to share her tears.
She practiced what she preached.
She was in a position to say and do things that I would have never heard from my parents...as much as they tried.
And I am forever grateful for that.
One of those late night gabs we used to have, after polishing off a bowl of Moose Tracks or Tin-roof Sundae (I forget which one)... We talked about her parents and how they both suffered from alsheimers before they died.
She told me that if that ever happend to her, to just put her in a home, and not worry about her because she wouldn't remember if I'd visited anyway. She made me promise that I wouldn't dwell on her situation, and that if I came to visit, to bring chocolate and to remember that even though on this earth she couldnt' remember me, that through all eternity, she would never forget.
I cried then.
And I cry now.
It's easier to promise all those things when the future is so far away...
so abstract and unrealistic at the time.
The decisions about her future are not up to me, thankfully.
But they will not be easy.
And they will not be lightly chosen.
This will probably be the last time I will have a chance to visit with her, maybe even with both of them.
So, for the next month, while the grandparents are visiting, I will enjoy each moment for what it is, and I will quietly say my goodbyes to a great & elect lady.
And pray that God will give me strength to put on a brave face.
"Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean.”~~David Searls
And it has been fun...
We had a big dinner at our house... after food, the kids all went downstairs to play and the adults sat around chatting and laughing.
As I listened to my dad tell a story he's told me 243
I could hear the giggling and squealing of the kids downstairs, and then my mind instantly flashed back to the adult table, when all the adults broke out in laughter. I revelled in the feelings of happiness. Contentment.
THIS is what family means to me.
We reminisced about things my brother and I do when we're together and laughed about things I'd forgotten we'd done just after he'd married his wife....
Then we talked about my Grandparents, who are flying in tonight.
My grandmother is suffering from alzheimers.
She began to show signs over a year ago, probably longer.
And now she's beginning to forget more momentous things.
She'd forgotten that her sister had kids. (These 'kids' are older than my parents.)
She'd forgotten how to get home once.
And then tonight, after I spoke with my aunt and uncle after they'd gotten them on their flight...
She'd forgotten she had greatgrandkids , much less grandkids , herself.
She didn't recognize her own purse, coat and carryon on the conveyer belt before getting on the plane.
She asked my uncle several times who she was going to see.
My grandfather, I think, is just tired.
He's never been the 'warm/fuzzy' type, but I think he's just exhausted of the entire process.
My favorite aunt and uncle live in the same town as the GrandParents, and try to help them out the best they can. But over the past year 1/2, as things have deteriorated, I could hear the worry.
Tonight.. the information hurt worse.
And I began to really feel sadness.
My grandmother and I share a different relationship than all my other siblings do with her.... most of it I attribute to being the oldest child of her oldest child.
She let me live with her & my grandfather when my family went back to Germany, and I was in college and missing them.
While my mother trained me and set a great example for me... and no one could replace that...
My grandmother gave me something different....but equally as important.
She spoke to me as an adult.
She bore her testimony, often.
She laughed often.
She wasn't afraid to share her tears.
She practiced what she preached.
She was in a position to say and do things that I would have never heard from my parents...as much as they tried.
And I am forever grateful for that.
One of those late night gabs we used to have, after polishing off a bowl of Moose Tracks or Tin-roof Sundae (I forget which one)... We talked about her parents and how they both suffered from alsheimers before they died.
She told me that if that ever happend to her, to just put her in a home, and not worry about her because she wouldn't remember if I'd visited anyway. She made me promise that I wouldn't dwell on her situation, and that if I came to visit, to bring chocolate and to remember that even though on this earth she couldnt' remember me, that through all eternity, she would never forget.
I cried then.
And I cry now.
It's easier to promise all those things when the future is so far away...
so abstract and unrealistic at the time.
The decisions about her future are not up to me, thankfully.
But they will not be easy.
And they will not be lightly chosen.
This will probably be the last time I will have a chance to visit with her, maybe even with both of them.
So, for the next month, while the grandparents are visiting, I will enjoy each moment for what it is, and I will quietly say my goodbyes to a great & elect lady.
And pray that God will give me strength to put on a brave face.
"Seeing death as the end of life is like seeing the horizon as the end of the ocean.”~~David Searls
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