“Grandma had a minor stroke, but she’s recovering,” read the first message. She’ll get better, I thought. I know my grandma. 

“Grandma is having a hard time eating and speaking,” the next message read, “but she’s out of the critical period. Baby steps in forward motion.” She’ll get better, I thought. I know my grandma.

I’m not even thinking about grandma when I tell myself to open my e-mail. I’m trying to pull away from the true story of a young Irish mother bringing children into a home too poor to feed them. I cry as she bears then buries child after child and I wonder how she bears the anguish. It’s painful to read but I don’t want to stop. I need to know if she survives her grief because there’s something inspiring about hearing, seeing, knowing people who overcome great adversity. 

I drag myself away because I have things I must do – important things, I think. But two e-mails perched at the top of my inbox bury all thoughts of work. 

“We have come to accept that grandma is in her final days,” the first reads. “We have some old family photos at the hospital and are now waiting, enjoying these last times together.” Now I want nothing but to sit at my grandma’s side, to look at the photos that once hung on her wall, to pass them to my aunts and uncles and try to smile, to hold my grandma’s hand as she fights death. 

Can I make it back in time to see grandma one last time?

Before I go anywhere I open the next e-mail. “Grandma is gone to be with the Lord.” It hits me like a wave and a sob bursts forth. But I know it can’t be true. Grandma has always been here. I’ve never lived without her love. She can’t be gone.

My Last Visit With Grandma

 

I close my computer and sit, doing nothing. No activity is worthy of this moment. After a while, with my face drenched in tears, I pick up the book and turn it over in my hand. I was reading someone else’s tale of sorrow, now I’m living my own.

Yet I know I can endure sorrow when I hold to hope. 

I don’t yet know if the woman in this story finds hope but I now think of another, similar story. My grandma too, brought child after child into this world – my mom, my aunts, my uncles. She lost children before they were born. She too knew poverty and pain. Yet she pushed through the challenges, clung to hope, and found joy.  

As I sit face to face with my loss, I come to see my gain. Never before have I realized how much inspiration I draw from grandma. Never before have I seen that her strength she passed to me.

I sit soaked in tears with an ache inside but I’ll get better, I know, just like my grandma.