I have been very fortunate in my life that 3 of my 4 grandparents are still living. I know that at 35 this is a true blessing that not many others my age get to share in.
My Grammie is in the hospital right now. If I understand all of the communications that have been sent out to our family she went into the hospital because of stomach pain that ended up being a massive infection in her body that began in her gall bladder. Because the infection is so bad the medical staff assigned to her care cannot operate on her body. They are working to clear up the infection so that they may operate on her gall bladder. In the mean time, while sitting in the hospital she began to have a heart attack which doctors are trying to stop with medication as they cannot open her up to clear her blocked arteries until the infection from her gall bladder is under control. She is on a ventilator and is being kept sedated right now. One moment she appears to stabilize and the next moment things get pretty hairy and uncertain.
While all of this is going on I cannot help but think that while my grandfather is the soul of our family, my Grammie is its heart. I am not sure how a family survives without its heart.
My Grammie is a one of kind lady. She can strike up a conversation like none other, and will willingly talk just as easily to a homeless person as she would the president of the United States. She also can stare like it is nobody's business. You can feel those eyeballs of hers burning into your back if you happen to catch her eye. She gives freely and openly and would do anything for anyone. She is also the first person to tell you you are being an as#hole if that is how she feels you are behaving.
My Grammie is the Italian matriarch of our family. She can cook with the best of them. I know that when I go to my Grammie and Grandpa's house I am going feast 3 meals a day. My kids love her and my Grandpa's mickey mouse pancakes.
My Grammie prays for Sarah with the best of them. Always lighting a candle for her when she goea to church. Knowing her like I do, she probably asks every single priest to pray for Sarah and tells each one of them her story.
My Grammie is a force to be reckoned with. If God is thinking of calling her home I hope he knows what he is in for. She will chat his ear off laughing with him and sharing with him one story or another and then the next minute read him the riot act for not taking care of business the way she thinks it should be done.
I want to be at the hospital with her so badly, but I know that my aunts and dad and grandpa need their time with her right now. They don't need the distraction of me and my kids. They need to be able to have this time just the 5 of them as a family to take care of business and be together. But it kills me to not be there with her and with them. It kills me to not be able to walk up to her bedside and hold her hand and tell her that I am there with her. That I dropped everything in my life to be with her because I have always believed in family first. That she was one of the people who helped instill that mantra into my heart. It is so hard to sit here and wait, but wait I will because it is what is most needed.
I hope that she can feel my love while she sleeps in her hospital bed. I hope that she knows that "my Bobby", as she calls Bob, is thinking about her and sending his love from 2000 miles away. I hope that she knows that he loves her, just as I do.
I hope she knows that she is the heart of our family. I sometimes worry that she feels like she lives in my grandfather's shadow because of the special love that so many in my family feel for him. I hope she knows that she has her own unique light that cannot be duplicated or out shined. That she alone is the only one who carries that special torch that we all look to. I hope she uses the energy of that light to heal herself. Because I know that I for one am not ready to live in a world where that light does not exist.
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