Death is never the uplifting topic and unfortunately that is what this is ultimately about. To go back, my Grandmother of 91 has been deteriorating in health dramatically in the last couple of years. She has lived with my parents for the past 5 or 6 years, but one little UTI and things have changed immensely. My parents found her collapsed twice last week in a span of 24 hours. The second time she did not have the energy to get up and they both struggled to get her to the bathroom to get her cleaned up. From there they went to the hospital and learned she had a UTI that had weakened her, but as she was laying there for an undetermined amount of time (being that this happened in the wee hours of the night) her muscle fibers in her legs began to break down due to her age and circumstance. All other tests and scans came back with good results; clear chest x-ray, normal heart pattern, no signs of stroke, etc. Yet the result is that she will need rehab to get mobile again and unfortunately my parents, both working full-time cannot be there every second to help. Thus they were faced with difficult decision to have her admitted to a nursing home that offers a rehab facility.
I love my Grandmother and I know she can’t live for ever, and I know she does not want that. Though it has been hard to watch her hearing and eye sight deteriorate futher the past few years, it is truly sad to witness one the sweetest women of all time begin to loose her mind. Yet, there is something else that sweeps through and that is the fact of my parents mortality, my wife’s parents’ mortality, and everyone I love including my own. In a way I feel like I have been keeping distance from this and perhaps unintentionally away from my Grandmother to not face it. Does anyone really want to face this? I know it is inevitable, but I must say I am not sure we should face it before it is time. Some people believe you should come to terms prior so that you are more prepared. Can you really prepare? I almost believe it is like the moment my daughter was born. You think you can know what to expect, but you can’t. Life and death are merely to big for us to fathom. It will be difficult when the time comes to face it, but I feel that is what is supposed to be like.
