Learning to Serve

We entered quietly her room. The same room we used to live in until I was four. The same room where I left her when I last visited her a couple of years ago. I was anxious to see her, but also a little nervous as I did not know what to expect. Was she the same? Had she changed? I was told she was not feeling very well, but she has been sick all her life, so sickness was no news.

We entered the room. She hardly lifted her head to look at us, and when she did her puzzled look told me more than I wanted to know. We tried to communicate, but she could not really hear us. And when she spoke, she was stumbling over her words. She tried to remember who we were, but her memory simply did not help her. It was more than I could bear. I wished I could say something, but I was just choking up. I tried desperately to hold back my tears and I was somehow successful.

You see, it does not matter that she is 90 and she lived her life, as some people would say. It does not matter that she lived more than an average person does. It does not matter that she has been sick all her life, that she has been sitting in bed ever since I remember her. It does not matter that in the last 10 years, because of my traveling and hectic schedule, I saw her only once every 2-3 years. She has always been there. She could hear, talk and think. She knew who I was and she always had a smile for me. She is my grandma. And right now she is not the grandma I always knew. Life will surely never be the same.

Oh, heaven could not come soon enough!