(picture is of my grandmother and my aunt's cat back in November 2007)May 23rd, 2008: My grandma goes in for surgery to help her spinal stenosis. Surgery was a success but she was fed too many drugs and stopped breathing. She coded.
May 24th, 2008: Grandma is stable. Not out of danger yet as she has tubes coming and going and the threat of pneumonia looming. I go into the coffee shop @ 7AM after closing the night before and sleeping little. My best friend calls and says her water broke! Baby is on the way. We are short staffed at work and leaving early is an impossibility. So I've got a long stress-filled shift at work, a grandma in the hospital that I can't gather enough information on, and a best friend beginning labor without me.
I began thinking about the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Was I to celebrate new life while grieving the loss of a beloved grandma?
Today, August 20th, 2008: Grandma is sitting up in a wheelchair moving herself about the room and chatting with her roommate about the birds that live at the nursing home. She squeezes my hand and asks when we are headed back to TN. :)
Okay, so she's not 100% on the memory recall and she's still in a wheelchair and not able to stand up for more than 5 minutes. But she's alive... and in the words of State Radio, "Every now and then she'll squeeze my hand."
Baby Abigail is also using her hands to reach out for things and hold on. Alive and alert and sending me beautiful smiles through the wonderful miracle of picture phones (okay, L helps considerably in taking pictures and sending them to my phone...).What's even better? I think Abi has grandma's mouth. I thought it the first hour I saw her little face. Perhaps it was the fact that grandma was on my mind when I first met Abi. Regardless... it seems that at this point in my life, the Lord giveth....
3 comments:
thinking about you often in your journey to the cold north
I'm so glad your grandma is doing better. That's wonderful!
Kari Berry,
Thanks love. It was ridiculously hot when I moved in yesterday and last night without air conditioning. I was expecting cold.. not hot! Come visit me soon.
L,
Of course, you say nothing about your beautiful baby girl. I miss her a lot, too. She's the backdrop on my phone and I keep showing her off to people. Ah, hug her for me. Then gather one of those hugs for YOU that I gave her earlier for that purpose. ;)
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