That's as much as I know, and each passing second brings me that much closer to opening the inevitable email, answering the Skype call, reading the gmail chat... I'm not really sure how my parents will tell me that Grandma Emma has passed away. So I wait. She's peaceful, my mom tells me, and she's surrounded by her children, some of her grandchildren and even some great-grandchildren. The room is filled with love, my mom tells me, and that feeling is immediately noticeable upon entering.
My dad, my uncles and aunts, are all tired, my mom tells me. They've been so faithful, sitting with her in shifts through the day and through the night, staying with her, waiting with her. She's not had food or drink in more than a day, my mom tells me. Her breathing is becoming increasingly shallow and each breath could plausibly be the last.
Isn't the same true of each of us? Regardless of how old or young we are, how healthy or unhealthy, we do not know the exact hour at which we'll be called home. Each breath we take could plausibly be our last. What a blessing, then, that her last hours of this earthly life are spent surrounded by her children--could there be a better way to be prepared to be enfolded in the love of her Father?
Still, for those of us who sit beside her, whether at her bedside or in spirit half a world away, the waiting is brutal, and what we're waiting for, tough to grasp. May God grant those of us who love her the wisdom and depth of assurance and understanding to celebrate on her behalf at the moment that she receives her call to come home.
My Grandma, with my cousin Andrea and her son, Zealand.
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